THE HUMANS

Name: THE HUMANS
Item: THE HUMANS
Author: Tess Farrand

"Quirky, Boring, Pretentious Family Drama"

Content: -2 Extreme caution for older teenagers and adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

THE HUMANS is an arthouse drama about a family having a weird Thanksgiving get-together in a crumbling two-story apartment in New York City. Based on a play 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. As the evening progresses, some family secrets are exposed.

THE HUMANS has a unique style and setting, but the ending doesn’t have a clear resolution. Instead, darkness envelops the family as the Thanksgiving get-together ends. Ultimately, the movie is rather slow, boring and pretentious. Also, the characters aren’t particularly interesting, charismatic or appealing. The two parents in THE HUMANS are Catholic, so the movie has some positive Christian references, including a stress on forgiveness. However, the father has a terrible secret, one daughter just broke up with her lesbian lover, and THE HUMANS contains some strong foul language.

Content:

(PaPa, P, CC, H, B, HoHo, PC, LL, V, S, AA, D, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Mixed pagan worldview set during a family’s Thanksgiving celebration in New York City where middle-aged parents of two daughters have remained Catholic (but not the daughters), the father prays before the meal, the mother has brought over a small statue of the Virgin Mary for her daughter’s new apartment, forgiveness occurs, and family is still seen as a good thing despite relationship problems within the family, but one daughter just broke up with her lesbian girlfriend, and homosexuality is treated in a politically correct manner, and the Catholic father has a moral flaw that’s revealed in the third act though he’s overcome it or dealt with it, despite some negative consequences

Foul Language:

11 obscenities (including three “f” words and a few “s” words), one Jesus profanity and 10 light profanities, plus a couple references to going to the bathroom, and one daughter has an intestinal problem

Violence:

No depicted violence, but there’s a mention of 9/11, which recently took place, and there are frequent loud thuds coming from the apartment upstairs throughout the movie that interrupt dialogue

Sex:

No sex scenes, but middle-aged father confesses he recently cheated on the mother, but they’ve reconciled, an unmarried couple is living together, but they mention they’ve decided to get married soon, and woman’s sister just broke up with her lesbian lover, and she talks to her ex-girlfriend on the phone in one scene

Nudity:

No nudity

Alcohol Use:

Alcohol use and light drunkenness

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

Some smoking but no drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Middle-aged father is fearful of the future because he made some financial mistakes and a moral mistake that’s gotten him fired and cost him his pension.

More Detail:

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.