The Future

2011 drama. . .or comedy

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A couple approaching middle age with a couple of dead-end jobs decide to adopt an injured cat named Paw Paw. Not able to take their pet home for 30 days forces them to think about their futures, and they both search for ways to find meaning in their individual lives with disastrous results for their shared life.

You and Me and Everyone We Know was one of my favorite movies of the year for the year that I watched it, and I had my eye on this Miranda July, first because I think we have similar hair and then because she's got that kind of quirky humor that I'm drawn to. I've wanted to catch this follow-up for a while now. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. The quirk is still there, Miranda July still has the same hair, and there's enough here to make this nearly interesting. On the other hand, it almost seems like July is working too hard to be the Miranda July that was number one in Filmmaker Magazine's "25 Faces of Indie Film" in '04. The artsy pretension grate where her former film's oddness delighted. Instead of being a movie about 30-somethings lost in the 21st Century that's really about something, it ends up being a movie that feels as lost as its characters.

I did like a scene where Miranda July awkwardly twerks. In fact, I might try to find a gif of that as soon as I'm done here and then watch it for a couple hours.

My favorite thing about this movie, however, is that July includes these interludes where the cat talks. She voices the cat, in fact, and that voice irritated my wife so much, that it actually makes me want to watch the movie a little bit more.

It probably didn't help that I watched this movie in something like eight installments.