Skip to main content /SHOWBIZ
CNN.com /SHOWBIZ
CNN TV
EDITIONS






Review: 'Human Nature' an inventive romp

Strange jokes that often hit targets

graphic


By Paul Tatara
CNN Reviewer

(CNN) -- Understand that only about 60 percent of it works, if that much, but "Human Nature" -- a new slice of smart-alecky madness from Charlie Kaufman, the author of "Being John Malkovich" -- is a curiously entertaining misfire.

Kaufman and director Michel Gondry examine primitive sexual instincts by combining "A Clockwork Orange's" distaste for negative reinforcement with the academic free-association of the Firesign Theater comedy troupe.

Never mind that Patricia Arquette spends much of the picture wearing a heavy coat of body hair and swinging through trees like a monkey. The dialogue contains left-field references to everything from the "To Sir with Love" to "Sophie's Choice" to "Me and Bobby McGee." At one point, a character actually has reason to declare: "Apes don't assassinate their presidents, Gentleman!"

Urgent urges

There's something of a love quadrangle here, if that's the right phrase for it. Since everything in the picture bounces off of their urges, it's best to simply describe the key participants:

- Lila Jute (Patricia Arquette): Born with an unfortunate condition that covers her body in a layer of wispy fur, Lila finally surrenders to her genetic misfortune and decides to live in the wilderness. She eventually becomes a writer of nature adventures, which allows her to linger among the animals while making a good living.

  MORE REVIEWS

 
  EW.COM REVIEWS

 

But, just like everyone else in the movie, Lila grows too sexually charged to maintain her distance from "proper" society. She hires a sympathetic doctor (Rosie Perez) to remove her hair via several years of painful electrolysis. During the ordeal, Lila shaves from head to toe and falls in love with ...

- Nathan Bronfman (Tim Robbins): Mentally abused by his parents for such miscalculations as eating his salad with the wrong fork, Nathan now runs a research lab where he attempts to school white mice in proper table etiquette. His theory (and this is very much in keeping with Kaufman's elliptical thought processes) is that he needs to find out if he can teach mice before moving on to humans.

Nathan, who we learn is a 35-year-old virgin with embarrassingly small private parts, meets and falls in love with Jute. But Jute's physical drawbacks soon have him pursuing his sexy "French" assistant, Gabrielle (Miranda Otto). Yes, the quotes around French are supposed to be there. It should also be noted that Nathan narrates the picture while seated in heaven. The bullet hole in his forehead suggests why he's there.

- Puff (Rhys Ifans): Technically not a legitimate feral child, since he was raised in the woods by a man who only acted like a gorilla, Nathan gives Puff a brutally scientific once-over that converts him from a beast to a refined Englishman. The only catch is that he can't control himself from having simulated sex with any woman who gets near him. Puff has eyes for every female he encounters, including Lila and Gabrielle.

Brave performances

This, as you can imagine, wears thin periodically, and some of the imagery is too discomforting to really laugh at. Puff's electrode-heavy schooling regimen is often vicious rather than funny, and some of the gags just fall flat (including a bizarre Disney-esque musical interlude that features Arquette, in all her semi-furry glory, gamboling through the woods like Bambi).

But when Kaufman scores, he scores big. There are six or seven laugh-out-loud moments, and that's more than you can say for the last 15 fraternity brother comedies combined.

Arquette, who, between this and David O. Russell's "Living in Oblivion" has proven herself to be an instinctively subtle comic actress, is almost certainly the bravest woman in Hollywood. She's often nude in "Human Nature," and Kaufman has her doing things that are all but guaranteed to make her look like a loon. Still, she pulls it off with considerable flair. Ifans is great, too, although his maleness blunts the shock.

Give this one a try, if for no other reason than to convince Hollywood that "something different" doesn't automatically mean throwing away good money.

"Human Nature" contains a little bit of everything, in ways that you've surely never seen it before. There's profanity, lab violence, nudity, sex, and about 20 instances of outre masturbation.



 
 
 
 



RELATED SITE:
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.


 Search   

Back to the top