Hollywood Reporter
May 18, 2001
CANNES -- Man's natural instincts and society's determination to tame and suppress them roil the satirical undercurrents of "Human Nature." The film is a collaboration between French video and commercial director Michel Gondry and screenwriter/co-producer Charlie Kaufman, the Oscar-nominated writer of "Being John Malkovich."
"Nature" shares with that film an absurdist scenario and frantic characters caught up in their own obsessions. But also like that film -- only more so -- "Nature" stumbles in the third act. Having set in motion a chain of bizarre events, Kaufman has difficulty finding a satisfactory conclusion to any of them.
With the right promotion and references to "Malkovich," Fine Line should be able to exploit commercially this spoof, which tackles everything from behavior mod and social ostracism to nature lovers and the "wild man" myth.
Certainly, Gondry should be congratulated for making a film most atypical of movies that commercial directors tend to make in their initial foray into features. This is a film of ideas and wry comic mayhem rather than one of technical virtuosity.
Nearly everyone in the movie is at war with his own body and instincts. The key line is uttered by a scientist-behaviorist (Tim Robbins): "When in doubt, don't ever do what you want to do." Everyone struggles, mostly in vain, to live up to that standard.
Patricia Arquette plays Lila, a woman afflicted with a hormonal disorder that causes hair to grow all over her body. Driven to near suicide, she instead embraces her animal self and splits from society to live in the wild. So deep is her love for nature, she becomes a best-selling author on the subject. But she returns to civilization for the one thing it cannot provide -- a mate.
Her electrologist (Rosie Perez) suggests the "perfect" guy for her: Robbins' virginal scientist, Nathan, whose social awkwardness is caused by his own physical shortcomings -- a tiny penis. He has been raised by a mother (Mary Kay Place) who drilled him in etiquette with the cavalier aid of her husband (Robert Forster). Is it any wonder his latest project involves teaching table manners to mice?
The love match takes, and soon Lila lures Nathan out for walks in the woods. One day, they discover a feral man (Rhys Ifans) raised by a deranged father to live as an ape. They capture him and take him to Nathan's lab, where the behaviorist intends to civilize the ape-man, Puff -- which he does when not distracted by his alluring French assistant (Miranda Otto).
In his plastic glass cell, Puff is soon reading "Moby Dick" and learning how to behave at the opera. But outings to restaurants to practice "civilized" behavior get cut short by his irrepressible urge to rub against waitresses.
The pattern is thus set for all the characters -- a vicious circle of expression and repression of basic human instincts. But rather than expand on these notions, the film contracts, putting characters and story into the straitjacket of authorial intentions.
The actors prove resourceful enough to keep the film lively despite its repetitiveness. Ifans is especially sharp in a virtual dual role as a wild man and a sophisticate, gradually letting the two sides merge. Arquette shows more range than in the past as a troubled woman who gradually feels comfortable in her own -- hairy -- skin.
Robbins gets comic mileage out of the anal-retentive behaviorist, whose lab reproduces his mother's dining room table. Otto also plays a dual-nature character, a woman pretending to be French, though her true intentions are never entirely clear.
Tech credits are solid with a use of such optical techniques as back projection and superimposition to make everything, including nature, looks twisted.
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