The Humans is available now on Showtime.
The Humans was birthed by writer Stephen Karam in 2015 as a much-heralded Off-Broadway play that was then transferred to Broadway in 2016 and won the Tony. Five years later, Karam has reimagined that same story as a thoughtful and brilliantly acted film, bringing Tony Award-winning actress Jayne Houdyshell along with him to reprise her role as Blake family matriarch, Deirdre.
Set on Thanksgiving day, The Humans is now an overtly existential haunted house story, set entirely within the newly rented but decrepit duplex apartment of Brigid (Beanie Feldstein) and Richard (Steven Yeun) in downtown Manhattan. The couple has invited her parents, Erik (Richard Jenkins) and Deirdre, and grandmother, Momo (June Squibb), from Scranton, PA, along with Aimee (Amy Schumer), Brigid’s sister who is a lawyer in the city. Only a week into the creaky, wi-fi-impared abode, the two floors are sparse and cold, which sets the stage for one heck of a holiday hootenanny!
To be clear, The Humans is horror adjacent in that Kramer most effectively uses the language of the genre, from its asymmetrical, claustrophobic framing to the washed-out color palette and jump-scare-inducing sound design, to tell his story. It’s a metaphorical “monster” movie that brilliantly deconstructs the unrealistic expectations we, as humans, bring into the Thanksgiving celebration. It channels our cumulative anxiety about the holiday to commune with our families while often sagging under the heavy weight of achieving pinnacle happiness and perfection while crammed around a table for a few hours. All of that literally oozes out of the apartment, with its peeling plaster, leaking pipes and paper-thin walls, revealing the dysfunction, passive aggressiveness, and secrets that families often drag into the room and eventually can’t ignore.
Led by the masterful Jenkins and Houdyshell, they bring their simmering angst with them as they roll the now dementia-stricken Momo into the awkwardly small halls of the apartment. Erik starts the day distracted while Deirdre clearly tries to be overly pleasant to balance out her cranky husband. Brigid is the sunny, optimist of the Blake family, while Aimee is the sharp-witted problem solver hiding her own issues. Rounding out the collection is Richard, the new(ish) boyfriend still trying to navigate the slippery family dynamics, while softly finding a path to revealing a bit more of himself to Brigid’s family.
The entire ensemble is stellar. Jenkins is the king of naturalistic performance, able to add just the right edge to even the most seemingly benign moments. Schumer is maybe the best she’s ever been in a role, using her comedic chops with natural precision as Aimee uses her wit to diffuse her prickly family. Yet she also serves up heartbreaking emotion with aching realism as Aimee’s personal issues are slowly revealed. Feldstein is brilliant at going from chirpy to restrained in the blink of an eye, and Yeun stands his ground as the most emotionally honest and available human inside the house. The only actor who gets short-shrifted is Squibb, who, because of Momo’s affliction, doesn’t get to do much, outside of one potent scene.
Kramer does a masterful job of finding the most interesting and dread-filled vantage points within the tight confines of the apartment. The camera makes the space claustrophobic and voyeuristic at the same time, as we find ourselves leaning into any given frame seeking what’s just out of shot. We’re so immersed within the confines of cinematographer Lol Crawley’s lens, that we feel like we’re at the proverbial table too. The intimacy of the space is immersive, and creepy and all encompassing. The film tells us to ignore the external and believe that everything the house is trying to tell us resides within the people sitting inside it.
With a slow build that rewards us with a cathartic escalation of what lies beneath the exteriors of every character, The Humans is a fascinating and often unsettling examination of our cumulative flaws. Through the patina of a Thanksgiving day, it’s a thoughtful meditation on how we project our disappointments upon one another, how casually callous we can be, and also how we endure because of these messy bonds too.
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/3I21KmB
This could be a real lead forward for personal gaming... Revolutionise gaming
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