Good idea lost in the noise

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

A deceased behavioural scientist waiting to enter heaven, a woman with body hair issues and a man raised as an ape each tell separate panels how their lives came to overlap in this offbeat comedy written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry - the team behind 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'. The drama here is not as touching as in their latter collaboration, but the comedy side of 'Human Nature' is just as quirky with eccentricities ranging from laboratory mice who have been taught how to use cutlery to Rhys Ifans mixing up dining manners with his baser human urges. The title of the film is somewhat ironic as the film explores the effects of conditioning - as well as the side effects of repressing what comes naturally. It is not an entirely realistic story as the scientist, played by Tim Robbins, kidnaps a feral Rhys Ifans, found in the woods, and raises him in a glass cage in his laboratory like a guinea pig, but then again, from the gigantic illuminated signs that Robbins uses to teach him how to talk to politely (!) to the somewhat miniature furniture that he gradually crowds his glass cage with, outrageousness seems to be what Kaufman and Gondry are most acutely interested in. Plus, of course, prodding questions of just how much sense conditioning makes and whether we are in life ultimately driven by sexual desires above all else.

I really loved it, when I watched it for the first time. But when I had to re-watch a couple of years later (it was some sort of Sneak at a local cinema), I just couldn't laugh as much. But the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The movie is actually good, it just has a few flaws, that you might see when you watch it for the first time. And therefor maybe you should only watch it once and stay onto the good feelings you had for this movie.It is greatly acted and the jokes hit the mark. Cleverly written and nicely directed (by Mr. Gondry who I adore very much), this has a very unique story to it. If you know Gondry, you know more or less what to expect (more or less everything alas not as greatly balanced as his more recent work).

The evolution of a species has much to do with its ability to live in harmony with the Earth. Those plants and animals which don't or can't live in harmony with their environment don't survive.Humans make history. That's one of their adaptive characteristics. Reason evolves out of environments totally dominated by Nature into ones which are symbiotically entwined with Nature. Instinct needs to be tamed a bit by reason in order for humanity to gradually civilize itself--a psychologically repressive venture to be sure, one that spawns many neuroses. But then, as Freud told us in CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS, repression of instinct, freedom and the id is necessary to keep civilization together. But is the civilization we've got, the best of all possible worlds? Imagine sitting in an office all day, pushing paper at some ultimately, meaningless desk job when you'd really rather be having sex with the secretarial staff. Repress those thoughts and carry-on... or not, as Puff's father did one day when he decided that he'd had enough of this civilization stuff. That was the day, Puff's father decided to jump up onto his desk, screech his way out of work and become an ape--literally to go back to Nature. "Prison break!" "Human Nature" is funny. On the one hand you have a mild mannered scientist named Dr. Nathan Bronfman who is trying to introduce civilized table manners to white mice within a lab setting and on the other you have a father who has kidnapped his young son from the civilized lap of his mother in order to raise him "Wild Child" style, as an ape in the forests of an overly industrialized America. "Human Nature" is funny because of juxtapositions like these. You see, within this industrialized America there is no room for a dwarf with an IQ of 170, who has a Phd to get any work outside of selling his labour time as a side-show freak, 'flying' an airplane costume in a circus ring, complete with a hairy woman who plays King Kong on the Empire State building (that famous last scene where, it wasn't the airplane who killed Kong, 'it was beauty killed the beast'). Hairy, sexy Lila can't earn a living in any other way than by playing King Kong to a side-show dwarf in airplane costume. Looks can be deceiving and the language of deceit is a large part of what civilized behaviour demands. People can't accept Lila as she is and she knows it. Much as the mythical Tarzan and King Kong, Lila's being violates the decorum of civilization itself. So, she decides to drop out of her side-show wage-slavery, much like Puff's dad and so the ape fest goes until ape meets ape-ess; ape meets civilization; ape-ess meets man and jungle; man meets Lila in hairless disguise and dwarf meets Lila's friend, the beautician with the wickedly snappy electrolysis wand. "Human Nature" is not only great comedy, it's a semi-profound speculative discourse on just what human nature is and how some of that nature is changed and some not changed through the history which humans make, write and remember. Thus, "Human Nature" has more to say to us than films with a similar plot outline e.g., "The Mystery of Kasper Hauser". It's also much funnier than your standard sexual farce. Give "Human Nature" a chance. See it and maybe, uncover some of your own basic instincts. Experience the refreshing wisdom of laughing at yourselves. And, hint, it wouldn't hurt to find a copy of the Kinks'sardonic "Apeman" to listen to before you start the movie.

'Human Nature' is a completely underrated feature, intelligently written by Charlie Kaufman and soundly directed by Michel Gondry in his feature film debut. 'Human Nature' suffered from high expectations - after 'Being John Malkovich' everybody expected another brain-bending masterpiece, and instead received a subtle, wry and quietly philosophical comedy, open to all kinds of interpretation and featuring beautiful, under-appreciated performances from Patricia Arquette, Tim Robbins and Rhys Ifans.Lila Jute (Patricia Arquette) suffers from a hormonal problem that causes hair to grow all over her body, which first appeared in her pre-teens. Convinced by her mother that she would never get a man, Lila went to live in the woods among the animals, and become a nature writer. The books were successful, and in her new found fame, Lila could afford to become "a hairless lie"; to get electrolysis. Through Louise, who performs the electrolysis, Lila meets Dr. Nathan Bronfman, a bespectacled manners-obsessed virgin and scientist, currently working on a "large sociological project" involving mice. Lila and Nathan are immediately attracted to each other, and are soon living together. One day, on a hike in the woods, the pair discover a human raised by a man who thought he was an ape, completely uncontaminated by civilisation. Nathan decides the man needs to experience civilisation ("Never to know the love of a good woman or appreciate the complex works of Moby Dick or marvel at Monet?"), and decides to 'save' him, by teaching him manners and decorum.What results from the oddball plot is a hilarious and occasionally touching investigation into human nature, that doesn't just come right out and say, "Humans are deceitful and always will be!" or the like, but leaves it up to you to decide.Patricia Arquette gives a sincere performance, and provides the most touching moments in the film. She shows incredible range in this film; from her naive desire to please Nathan by becoming a "real girl", wearing pink, painting her nails and taking up ballet, to becoming a warrior. Lila is vulnerable when she is with Nathan, but she transforms herself (with the help of Louise) and becomes strong and confident.Tim Robbins is convincing as a bordering obsessive compulsive, and shows great comedic timing in the first few scenes with Patricia Arquette. It was an interesting choice to have Tim Robbins talk about his actions in retrospect, and then see him act them out with pure selfishness and inability to control his lusting.Rhys Ifan's performance as Puff is the same standard as Arquette's. He demonstrates a large range; from an 'ape' to the apex of 'refinement'. There is one scene in particular, where footage of Puff as an 'ape' is shown, while the reformed Puff stands calmly as it plays, knowingly, in a very civilised suit.'Human Nature' is a bit of a mixed bag film - it even morphs into a musical for a moment near the beginning, in a song sung by Patricia Arquette herself (what a beautiful, restrained voice!). Sometimes it's surreal, as with the scene I mentioned in the last paragraph. The humour in the film is mostly created by scenes where the flaws of humankind are exposed - our indifference, how we pretend to be something we're not, how we like to separate ourselves from nature even though that's where we came from, before civilisation.I love the open-endedness of this film! It is the best thing about it. Also, I enjoyed Gondry's sneaky references to Bjork's 'Human Behaviour' video clip.