Human Capital

"Human Capital", directed by Marc Meyers ("My Friend Dahmer") is the second screen adaptation of Stephen Amidon's novel of the same name. I have neither seen the first one nor read the book, but this version of "Human Capital", mainly being carried on the shoulders of a great cast, is an effortful suburban tale of what happens when people get pushed to their limits, mental, physical and financial alike, a tale that sometimes hits and misses.

"Human Capital" is a character-driven drama structured in retrospective kind of way, putting a single event in the center of it and then telling each character's journey and role in said event. This story-telling works well for the first hour, but as it progresses it also gets slower, leading into a silent and unsatisfying climax which in retrospect makes "Human Capital" feel more like a build-up in its entirety. The story and themes from which it's weaved from is realistic, relevant and tries to touch your strings, but does so unsurely. Financial hardships, father/daughter and husband/wife relationship problems, depression, suicide, sexual freedom - all of these themes are there on some level, but they don't connect together as well as they should've. It is the acting work by the well put together cast that makes up for some flaws, even the smaller roles are filled in with familiar faces and commendable performances. In my opinion, the brightest highlight shines on Live Schreiber and Maya Hawke. Visually it's quite obvious that "Human Capital" is made on a limiting budget and seems like most of it went to the cast (well deserved, good choice), so visually it has come out a standard indie drama/thriller flick, with no extraordinary solutions or distinctive characteristics.

"Human Capital" is not a bad movie but neither is it memorable, it engages as a character-driven with enjoyable performances drama but has a knack to eventually underwhelm in most of the other areas. Recommended to those who are intrigued by its cast. My rating: 6/10.

Human Capital is a remake of the Italian movie by the same name but made for the American audience but this one didn't translate well, it was dull and confusing from the beginning. It stared Liev Schreiber whose daughter intertwines with Marisa Tomei's family over a deadly accident. Peter Sarsgard played Marisa's husband who losses Liev's investment and doesn't pay him back till he is manipulated. The story even gets more confusing when it's portrayed from each character's point of view, I would have just fast forwarded it to end scenes and skip the rest of the flick. It was good to watch once, but it just wouldn't be worth watching again.

Yes, it has a great cast, but... that's about it.

Otherwise it's a rather pedestrian "lives crashing together" type drama, centered around a car accident. It's also rather obvious what happens.

You know when you have a nagging feeling that you have seen a movie (or any other kind of Deja Vu), but you know you didn't? And then you (me in this case) may think, it's because I've seen so many movies, that's why it does feel familiar. And then you search the title here on imdb and realize you've seen the Original (Italian I think) movie? Which is far better than the remake - and I'm saying this while being fully in love with Marisa Tomei in general.

I singled her out, but you have a stellar cast overall of course. But still and while this does have certain things working for it (if you are into dramas), it also has quite a lot that you may consider to annoying for you. Or if you've seen the original, have seen done better for drama and other effect ... If you don't mind subtitles then - watch the one from 2013 - you're welcome

In early Sept, within one day of first screening of this film at Toronto, it had 1,400 IMDB nine and ten star ratings which is more people than saw it at the festival.At this point exactly 11 of the 1,400 votes are from accounts which have rated another film. In other words this is >99% fake uprating. At Toronto most of the audience was fidgeting throughout, and look simply fatigued at the end of the film. Forget the few gushing reviews on the 'critics reviews" section here from reviewers who give everything a ten in hopes of getting free festival junkets. The legit outlets like Variety and Ebert panned this turgid nonsense. Variety: "its convoluted narrative rigging not leading to any particular sense of meaning" (the rigging and artificiality of the plot is cringeworthy) Ebert: "'Human Capital' is the type of middling, middlebrow mediocrity that strives to be about capital-I Ideas but approaches them with the savoir-faire of a toddler."

My take: 1) Can someone tell Marisa Tomei that she cannot act her way out of a paper bag? She was jarringly distracting evidence of overacting in "Frankie" and this is worse. The other actors in this, Schreiber, Betty Gabriel, Maya Hawke do OK. 2) what is the point of talking down to the audience and banging them over the head as if they are idiots?

skip this mess.