Human Nature (2001)

There are many different kinds of movies. This is one of a rare species: a film with a message. Other people might hear different morals when watching it, or none at all, which is okay, too. But to me, Charlie Kaufman wants to tell us "deprive an adolescent of his right to a natural sexual development and you create a violent outburst".

Director Michel Gondry presents you a satire. The comedic element comes from grotesque, which is a relief after the all too juvenile teen movies that pathetically try to generate laughter by gross embarrassment and over-emphasized sounds of rearward body functions.

Instead of telling the story of average parents struggling to deal with their teenage son, you will find a) a woman with excessive body hair (in my view representing all your everyday discontent with your true self), and b) a man with an obsessive compulsion to demand perfect table manners (which of course stands for the misuse of parental power to force his unfounded views onto his "son")

The adolescent in this film being troubled by his sexual awakening is not the usual cool, hip, handsome high-school kid that all the real cool, hip,... okay-looking high-school-kids don't want to identify with anyway. It's Puff (Rhys Ifans), a young man who was raised by a deranged father to believe that he is an ape. This brings him in a situation not totally unlike that of a (human) teenager: somehow like the other humans, but being told that he's all weird and that everything he knows is suddenly wrong and bad. Eager to learn and please, he tries his best to conform, but to "control", that is, to ignore and deny his sexual curiosity, is just asking too much and he is forced to resort to deception.

It always amazes me how we Americans keep wondering why we have about 200x more shooting deaths than (other) civilized countries. One reason can be seen in the ratings for this particular film. Europe: around 12 (France: PG), USA: R, for it's hard to spot nudity. This is ironic confirmation of what the film is trying to draw attention to: by demonizing Puff's sexuality and using violence to suppress it, both Nathan and Lila become guilty of creating violence in turn.

For viewers who find this to be what this movie is about, I strongly recommend Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine (Title 0310793 here on IMDB.com) only it is not so funny, because it's a documentary.

Fmovies: I loved this film. Everyone in it was sharp. It may be slow to build up in laughs, but I didn't mind one bit. The always great Arquette held it all in for me. Robbins was excellent, too. (as always- hey Tim, I want to see another directed feature from you!) Highly recommeded for fans of "intellectual" comedy. Some classic moments....

I saw this movie on TV and was pleasantly pleased. It turned out better than what I had expected. The best thing about the movie is the story. Its all about human nature of sorts, About thing that people do and choices they make given the circumstances.

All the actors fit their respective roles. Especially Rhys Ifans as Puff and Patricia Arquette as Lila. But unlike other movies there is never any breakthrough or memorable scene that one might later remember. The whole movie seems to be one single continuous piece but one doesn't realize that until after the movie.

I don't think that this movie also fits any particular genre. Even though it is set as a comedy, all the humor is too suttle to be branded as genuine comedy. I don't know what genre it is, all I know I that is good.

So, If you wouldn't fancy any particular genre of movies but want to watch a movie that will not make sad, angry or too confused about the plot and so on, Watch this.

Human Nature fmovies. Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman received a great deal of acclaim for his "Being John Malkovich" script, but while that film contained many quirky and inventive ideas, the plot fell apart in the third act, making for an ultimately unsatisfying experience. The same can be said for his second produced script, "Human Nature," which is chock-full of good ideas but ultimately unravels. Kaufman is clever and a jokester, he's just not much of a scenarist.

On the up side, there's a lovely performance by Patricia Arquette, who's not afraid of any of the many bizarre turns her character goes through, and director Michel Gondry (who has made terrific videos for Bjork and others) does the best that he can with the script. (Although those CG mice are pretty lame once they are set free.)

Not an unalloyed success, but some elements here definitely work. Too bad they don't all come through.

This may be one of the most undereatimated movies on the imdb. Trumped only by it's more popular cousin Adaptation, this movie in the best that film language has to offer express all the joy, sorrow, misery, agony, torment, ennui, sillyness, and boozy lust of being a biologacal creature in a social super structure. I love this movie. I love how it translates the dry language psychological philosophy into an entertaining movie that is both emotional heavy and light heartedly funny. Rhys Ifans is absolutely wonderful in his portayal of the apotheosis of the destructive nature of language on human emotion. As with adaptation I just can't say enough about this movie. They seem so intelligent and full of joy that Charlie Kaufman is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers in hollywood along with Linklater and Tarantino.

10 out of 10 i'm drunk

This is further proof that writer Charlie Kaufman is probably the most unique writer in show business and he's developing into quite the cult figure. This odd story is about a woman named Lila (Patricia Arquette) who's body is covered with hair and at the age of 20 she retreats into the wilderness to hide and she writes nature books to make ends meet. But after some time she decides to leave and get electro-dialysis because she gets horny. Her friend hooks her up with a shy and repressed scientist named Nathan (Tim Robbins) and they hit it off. Then while on a nature walk they discover a man (Rhys Ifans) living in the wilderness who thinks he's an ape. They take him back to Nathan's lab where he is going to teach him to be human. Only Kaufman could come up with such a ridiculous story and make it redeemable. The film is directed by Michel Gondry who is known for directing several of Bjorks videos and he makes his feature film debut here. I think the film works because Kaufman makes sure the viewer is not to take this seriously but at the same time the humor is not presented in an over the top way like some cheap attempt at laughs. The humor is more dry witted and it reminded me a little of something Albert Brooks might have thought of. Another thing I enjoyed was the performance of Arquette. She's the core of this film and it should remind everyone that she is able to carry a film by herself and that she's a very underrated actress. I've always been a big fan of hers and she's just not used in films enough. She does appear nude but she seems fine with it and she should, she looks great. The film wants to ask the question about sex and the difference between humans and animals and the environment we are all brought up in. When the film was over I wasn't sure what to make of it but once I found out that Charlie Kaufman wrote the script an immediate smile came across my face. Knowing he was behind this odd comedy seems to make all the sense in the world!