The Future: Sundance Review

4:13 PM PST 1/22/2011 by Todd McCarthy

Overly precious poetic examination of a couple’s eccentric attempts to evolve their lives will appeal to a rarified few.

PARK CITY -- (Premieres) A film as fragile and miniaturist as its title is grandiose, The Future is just too terribly twee to readily embrace.

Miranda July’s long-awaited second feature brandishes poetic insights and imaginative flights akin to those that graced her 2005 debut Me and You and Everyone We Know, but without nearly so much of the bracing outrageousness and sense of surprise. This quiet, quirky look at a couple haplessly trying to envision and manipulate their future will no doubt gather some ardent fans around it, but their numbers will be small. After its Sundance debut, the German-American coproduction will play in competition at the Berlin Film Festival next month.