C’était mieux demain (2025) Cycle of Time
IMDb meta-data 1h and 43m, rated 6.0 by 566 cinematizens.
Genre: Sy Fy Comedy.
DNA: France.
Verdict: Diverting.
Tagline: ‘It was better tomorrow!’
In a stolid petit bourgeois neighbourhood time travel occurs, by accident. A couple from 1958 are inexplicably hurled forward in time to 2025 where they are fish out of water socially and technically. While the emphasis is on all the tech toys there is an undertone that the future is not all golden. There are homeless people on the streets and women are still victimised.
There are plenty of laughs as the couple comes to terms with the brave new world of cell phones, Siri, self-driving cars, streaming media, tell-all television, an untamed Roomba, and more, and socially with racial integration, social media, sexual liberation, and the price of cigarettes!
He is so firmly set in his 1958 ways that adjustment is nearly impossible, but she, long used to going along to get along, adapts better than he does to contemporary expectations, wardrobe, norms, and so on. Her talents for organisation, solicitude, and encouragement pay off at work. She is willing to try. And she succeeds little by little. Her maternal care at the office, so unusual in contemporary business, leads to commercial success, an inexplicable result to her manager who manages by McKinsey’s veiled management threats: ‘We have a KPI for you!’
While his skill to say ‘No’ leads to nothing, per Lear. So he stays at home. Role reversal follows. He has one shock after another, and becomes a changed man, though we wonder how long that will last once he is back in 1958.
We saw it on Wednesday at the Palace in Leichhardt as part of the Alliance Française film festival; one of the three we chose to see. I didn’t know what to make of the third with its immaculate conception, Nun in the City (2025) Doux Jésus and haven’t written it up. It is another fish out of water tale with some high points but, well….