Review: Future Weather

Future Weather was a film that intrigued me ab initio. It seemed like a perfect counterpiece to Take Shelter, the Michael Shannon breakout explosion. While Future Weather is more of a family dynamic piece and less cerebral (and definitely less supernatural) than Take Shelter, they share commonalities.

I always love supporting women filmmakers, and Jenny Deller does a fair job in her first feature. Her other main credit, a short entitled “Save the Future,” serves as both a prologue and trailer to the feature.

Lili Taylor, as a mentoring teacher, is completely and overwhelmingly spot-on in each scene. I can be very lukewarm on Amy Madigan (e.g. I love her as Hannah’s mom on HBO’s Girls, but did not care for her in That’s What I Am), but she was the perfect blend of no nonsense and nurturing in her role as Greta. Any film centered on an adolescent actor can be unnerving, but newcomer Perla Haney-Jardine’s no-holds-barred acting sets up her for primo roles in any future YA dystopian novel movie adaptation that she chooses.

One of the best elements of the film is Haney-Jardine’s Lauderee, who is the film’s protagonist. An aspiring ecological scientist and environmental activist, Lauderee wants to change the world around her, but she is often ill-equipped with the tools to do so. Being a middle schooler, she doesn’t know how to filter her passion as not to alienate those around her. Her lack of tact and diplomacy is not without consequence, and she gradually learns to tamper her tongue without diluting her zeal.

Any film that promotes Marie Curie types over the Kim Kardashian trope is worth a look, even if the film is not without its faults.  A little unnecessarily slow in parts, the film has wonderfully understated pacing issues. Aside from a few pacing problems, I found this gem to be quite palatable.

Recommended for fans of Another Earth, Tumbleweeds, and Beasts of the Southern Wild. Recommended.

Note: The short film “Save the Future” is available on DVD.