Things to Come
Sundance Selects | Release Date: December 2, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
88
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
TimeStephanie ZacharekDec 10, 2016
Huppert is extraordinary — she reveals everything even when you think she’s showing nothing — and she’s the perfect actress, right now, for Hansen-Løve’s fine-grained perceptiveness. Read full review
100
Boston GlobePeter KeoughDec 8, 2016
Cinematic rarity — a genuinely philosophical film. Read full review
100
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthDec 1, 2016
Mostly this is a thrillingly compassionate, deceptively simple, and wholly invested look at a capable older woman with a lively mind coping with a series of common misfortunes. Where that could be depressing, or at least overridingly melancholy, here it is strangely hopeful. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 1, 2016
Things to Come holds us completely. A life is unfolding here, under our eyes, and we never lose sight of how special that is. Read full review
100
IndieWireDavid EhrlichOct 4, 2016
Things to Come may lack the urgency or cool that flecks the writer-director’s previous movies, but this is perhaps her richest piece to date, a warm, funny and profoundly sensitive portrait of letting go and learning to make new memories. Read full review
100
VarietyGuy LodgeFeb 15, 2016
Huppert is such a persistently and prolifically rigorous performer that she risks being taken for granted in some of her vehicles, but this is major, many-shaded work even by her lofty standards. Read full review
91
The Film StageGiovanni Marchini CamiaFeb 14, 2016
While Hansen-Løve certainly deserves credit for writing such a compelling character, it’s difficult to imagine anyone realizing Nathalie as consummately as Huppert, who, even by her exceptionally high standards, pulls off a superlative performance. Read full review
90
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeDec 2, 2016
This is an intelligently made film about an intelligent woman, but it’s also emotionally engaging. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 1, 2016
Ms. Hansen-Love surveys the territory with clear eyes, but also with an unmistakable shading of pity and with ideas, in particular about Nathalie’s sexuality and the political compromises of her generation, that seem more like assumptions than insights. Read full review
90
Village VoiceBilge EbiriDec 1, 2016
As we watch this woman lose her family, her status, and maybe even some part of her pride, we sense both the horror and the intoxication of freedom. Read full review
90
Screen DailyWendy IdeFeb 15, 2016
It’s to the credit of Isabelle Huppert, who excels in the role of philosophy teacher Nathalie, and to the deft handling by Hansen-Løve that the film wears its wealth of ideas so lightly. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniJan 26, 2017
At its satirical best, Things to Come takes aim at some of the sacred cows of French academia, showing how the posturing of today’s radical kids seems to repeat the attitudes their parents had in the '60s. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 13, 2017
Huppert's brilliance is indisputable, her performance alternately playful and deeply moving. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyDec 2, 2016
In each of her films, Hansen-Løve has the patience to wait for what Henri Cartier-Bresson called “the decisive moment,” the moment where something "small," something detailed and specific, reveals the universal. Things to Come is full of such moments. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorDec 1, 2016
In the hands of director Mia Hansen-Love and the heart-stopping Huppert, Things to Come (L’Avenir) examines the inevitable losses and possible liberation of late middle age with impressive sensitivity and restraint. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineClayton DillardSep 23, 2016
The film is further confirmation of Mia Hansen-Løve’s delicately devastating ear and touch as a filmmaker. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 2, 2016
Huppert never loses sight of the fact that Nathalie’s wounded heart often overrules her steel-trap mind. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 6, 2017
[Huppert's] remarkable. So, too, is Things to Come. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 1, 2016
The filmmaker has put two familiar pieces of music to such glorious, full-throated use toward the end that I can’t resist mentioning them: Donovan’s “Deep Peace,” and “Unchained Melody” done in close harmony by the Fleetwoods. For Nathalie in the uncertainty of the here and now, peace and harmony are great ideas too. Read full review
80
We Got This CoveredLauren Humphries-BrooksOct 16, 2016
Intellectually vibrant and emotionally complex, Things To Come is a luminous film drawn along by Huppert’s central performance and Hansen-Løve’s delicate script. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounSep 1, 2016
Cat lovers (and possibly fans of ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’) will appreciate the role of an ageing black feline as a symbol of the sudden changes in Nathalie’s life. Everyone else should warm to the way that Hansen-Løve distils the chaos of life and the life of the mind into such a warm, thoughtful, surprising drama. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 1, 2016
Hansen-Løve and Huppert cup a single life in their hands and ponder the mixed blessing of freedom from a philosophical position: the trade-off between self-sufficiency and aloneness that Nathalie finds herself negotiating. Read full review
80
The GuardianHenry BarnesFeb 15, 2016
Things to Come is a smart, earnest undertaking: an exploration of the insecurity that can hit any of us, at any age, when we start to question the life we’ve built. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerFeb 15, 2016
The film’s shrewd sense of humor, its way of underlining the absurdity of life’s foibles, is fully carried by Huppert’s disarming performance, which never panders to easy sentiments but doesn’t shy away from showcasing raw emotion. Read full review
80
CineVuePatrick GambleFeb 14, 2016
A fluent, confident and deeply felt work by an astute chronicler of life, Things to Come considers the fragility of ideas when exposed to the eroding force of time in beautifully humane fashion. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 21, 2016
Hardly a riveting experience. It has slow patches, but it has a cumulative effect, thanks equally to Hansen-Love and Huppert. We come away feeling enriched and expanded, without exactly knowing how or why. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayDec 8, 2016
Suffused with wry humor, vulnerability and radiant warmth, Huppert’s performance captures that delicate period in life during which resignation morphs into graceful, even grateful, acceptance. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyNov 30, 2016
If Things To Come doesn’t completely fulfill Hansen-Løve’s career mission of elevating minor incidents to major themes, it still rings with her clarity and personality. She conveys in single sentences what less confident filmmakers might expound on in a monologue, and makes small gestures more poignant by tossing them off casually or making an unexpected cut. Read full review
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