HYBRID IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PROGRAM

Things to Come (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2016, 102 min.)

Linda DeLibero, Senior Lecturer and Special Advocate for Alumni and Outreach, and Former Director of the JHU Film and Media Studies Program

Isabel Huppert’s long and brilliant acting career has come to define a certain kind of independent French woman whose fierce determination to live freely makes for heady, irresistible drama. But few directors have utilized Huppert’s inimitable talents like Mia Hansen-Løve in the exquisitely subtle Things to Come. A former actress herself, Hansen-Løve coaxes vulnerabilities and a touching warmth from Huppert we’ve rarely seen, and consequently, this performance ranks among her finest. Huppert plays Nathalie Chazeaux, a respected philosophy professor about to have the edifice of her perfect marriage and successful career come tumbling down around her. Fumbling for certainty and a way forward after crippling loss, Huppert exposes a raw and complex blend of fragility and steeliness in her portrayal of Nathalie’s fight to maintain her dignity and her happiness. And Hansen-Løve, whose eight deeply personal features tackle the challenges of family life and adulthood, here creates a masterwork about the difficulties of defining a self with humor, grace and true grit.

$10 fee for guests (No charge for ASG members, ASG subscribers, and RI members)