Moving On

 

THE LIFE AHEAD (B+) - An elderly Sophia Loren anchors this melancholy but hopeful story about a mother hen to prostitutes who takes in a wild street kid and forms a bond with him. What could have been a sickeningly sweet Hallmark-level movie about a cultural/generational clash instead strikes at the human marrow of relationships in the hands of director Edoardo Ponti (Loren's son) and a trio of writers interpreting a book by Romain Gary. 

The film opens with Loren's Holocaust survivor Madame Rosa getting mugged by preteen street kid Momo, and before you known it, the pair are thrown together under Rosa's roof with a couple of other children hoping that their mothers will come retrieve them someday. Rosa's health is starting to slip, and she becomes prone to fits of catatonia.

But she shares a secret lair in the building with Momo, and the two bond over their respective emotional traumas and the basic human desire for connection and nurturing. When she informs him about her experience with Auschwitz, it sounds so foreign to him that all he can merely recite back to her is a homonym: "House witch." 

Momo matures and bonds with another boy in the house, but he also still works the street, selling drugs. He retains a dark outlook, holding out little hope that any of these prostitutes will return to retrieve their children. "I'm not going to suck up to happiness," he vows.

But happiness seeps through in this thoughtful story about a woman (no mere stereotypical hooker with a heart of gold) at the end of her life offering glimpses of optimism to a budding young man just figuring out his own path. The seaside town is captivating, and these two actors -- along with quietly effective supporting cast members, young and old -- are a winning odd couple

THINGS TO COME (2016) (B) - Mia Hansen-Love meanders a bit with the story of a middle-aged woman who placidly observes all of the guideposts in her life starting to unravel. With Isabelle Huppert in the lead role, this drama is rescued from a mild case of ADHD.

When it rains, it pours. Nathalie's marriage is stale. Her mother -- a whiny former model/actress -- is entering a mental decline. Her scholarship is out of date. And she has settled into a bourgeois lifestyle that raises the eyebrows of her radical students and one former student, Fabien, (a terrific Roman Kolinka) who is now choosing to live further off the grid. 

Nathalie does gain a cat out of this whole deal, and more important, she realizes the upside of having your life slowly unravel -- it can be liberating. With her classic placid demeanor, Huppert portrays a woman going with the flow and looking on the bright side. 

This movie follows in sequence from Hansen-Love's previous character studies -- a teenage girl in "Goodbye First Love" and young adults in "Eden." This one is not as sharp as the first but more focused and effective than the second.

BONUS TRACK

This Woody Guthrie nugget stands out during a car trip with Nathalie and Fabien in "Things to Come":