THE HUMANS

THE HUMANS is an arthouse drama about a family having a weird Thanksgiving get-together in a crumbling apartment in New York City where some family secrets are revealed. The two parents in THE HUMANS are Catholic, so the movie has some positive Christian references, including a stress on forgiveness, but the father has a terrible secret, one daughter has just broken up with her lesbian lover, and the movie contains some strong foul language and is rather pretentious, boring, trite, and too ambiguous.

Based on a play that’s set shortly after 9/11, the movie opens as the Blake family gathers at the Manhattan apartment of Brigid Blake and her boyfriend, Richard, for Thanksgiving. Brigid’s middle-aged parents, Erik and Deirdre, arrive with her grandmother, Momo, who suffers from dementia. There is also Brigid’s sister, Aimee, a lawyer who just broke up with her girlfriend.

Brigid and Richard’s new apartment has seen better days, but it’s got two floors, plus a basement. They’ve just started moving, however, so the furnishings are a little bare. Also, the tenant living above them occasionally makes loud, disturbing noise, the source of which are unknown. As darkness falls outside, eerie things start to go bump in the night.

Meanwhile, tension mounts within the family. The parents, who live in Scranton, Pennsylvania are upset that the two daughters live so far away, Brigid in New York City and Aimee in Philadelphia. They’re also upset that the daughters have abandoned the Catholic faith with which they were raised.

As the evening progresses, some family secrets are exposed. The daughters learn that life for their parents isn’t going that well financially or personally. Their father is worried about having enough money for his retirement. “Don’t you think it should cost less to be alive?” he asks. He also starts to see things through the cloudy windows that look out onto the courtyard of the apartment complex.

Will the personal connections among these family members survive the differences, disappointments and fears that infect them?

The ending to THE HUMANS doesn’t have a clear resolution. Instead, darkness seems to envelop the family as the Thanksgiving get-together comes to an end. For example, throughout the movie, the lights inside the apartment seem to flicker, die out and then light. Also, the father eventually is reduced to tears at the end. THE HUMANS also contains strong foul language, references to drunkenness and a homosexual subplot involving the older daughter. That said, THE HUMANS has some positive references to Christianity, including a stress on forgiveness. In the end, however, religion and faith don’t help the family members address their problems, much less overcome them. As noted above, the two daughters no longer believe the Catholic faith in which they were raised. That said, the family remains together as the younger sister and her boyfriend go outside to say goodbye to the others when it comes time to leave.

THE HUMANS has a unique style and setting. Ultimately, though, the movie is rather slow, boring and pretentious. None of the characters are particularly interesting, charismatic or appealing to make up for those narrative and tonal flaws. Finally, the character revelations in the third act seem a bit trite, cliché and even politically correct. It all results in final scenes that seem to play too ambiguously as well as unresolved. THE HUMANS also contains some strong foul language, including three “f” words and a profanity mentioning Jesus. MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.