FILM

USA 2011 91 mins Dir: Miranda July Starring: Miranda July, Hamish Linklater, David Warshofsky, Isabella Acres

An old geezer proudly recites his bawdy limerick about Santa. A nightshirt takes on a life of its own and starts crawling about. An earnest little girl buries herself up to her neck in the back lawn. A man manages to stop time and engage in an existential conversation with the moon. His girlfriend has random sex with a bloke whose phone number she finds on the back of a drawing. Oh, and the whole thing's narrated in squeaky-cutesy style by a cat with an injured paw, voiced by the director herself.

The prospect of a film directed by a performance artist is so heart-sinking that it came as an enormous relief when Miranda July's debut 'Me and You and Everyone We Know' turned out not to be a feast of whimsy and pretentiousness but an eccentrically transgressive exploration of loneliness. Alas, her relentlessly quirky follow-up seems hell-bent on confirming all the prejudices she previously overturned. It centres on a borderline-insufferable thirtysomething couple sharing a cramped LA flat. Highly-strung Sophie (July) teaches dance to little girls, while slackerish Jason (Linklater) runs a computer helpline. Both seem wedded to their laptops rather than each other, the only thing they have in common being a haircut. But when they decide to adopt a sickly cat from an animal shelter, which will be available for collection when its treatment is completed in 30 days, this induces some kind of mutual anxiety about where the drifting duo's lives are going. It's a promising theme, but the film then proceeds to drown in its own self-conscious kookiness, leaving us wondering what self-respecting animal charity would ever entrust a cat to such a drippy pair of flakes. (Robin Askew)

Website thefuturethefuture.com/

Opens November 4