The Humans

Probably not the most ideal movie to watch on Thanksgiving Day as it focuses on a dysfunctional family unraveling their individual frailties during a desultory Thanksgiving dinner filled with personal confessions. It plays almost like a horror movie, but it's really an acting showcase for a strong cast including Amy Schumer in a non-comic role.

I'm one of those people that really likes talky type dramas with a haunting atmosphere. This is one of those movies. Think of "The Nest" or "The Assistant". This movie is equally as talky and unnerving as those movies.

This is a story about an American family spending Thanksgiving together in a New York flat. While we only see from the inside out, you can feel the liveliness of the city outside. This family is at a breaking point even if most family members are unaware of this. The father, played by Richard Jenkins in an amazing performance, is at the core here and everything seems to be caused, yet held upon the shoulders of this man. A man with a wife of 30 to 40 years and two daughters, now grown. Seeing them maturing and becoming the women they will forever be, he seems scared about the rest of his own life and theirs as he seemingly slowly crumbles before our very eyes.. he is the only male in the family and he consistantly is there as a pillar for his family. Strong and tender.. wavered and weathered. He feverishly is fixated on the sounds within and surrounding the dingy yet spacious apartment. The crumbling apartment symbolizes the emotional crumbling within this family even if not at face value. This is a movie unlike anything that has ever been seen before. There is something lurking deep within. A mysterious sense of strangeness. The human condition at its most frightening.

The people this film really resonates with will call it a horror movie. People with no sense of artistic approach will call it a drama. People that are easily amused will call it a comedy. Non thinkers will call it all of the above and people with no patience will call it a waste of time. I call it a masterpiece for the ages.

This father has something to tell his beloved daughters. It's a doozy.

This is my type of cinema as thus was easily one of the best movies of 2022 yet.

Twenty years after 9/11, the USA no longer feels like the land of opportunity. Instead, it is the country where the rich get richer, and the rest of the country sinks deeper into debt. Instead of blaming the billionaires who have transferred the wealth of the middle class to themselves, or the fragility of an economy dependent on foreign oil, Americans blame each other. They argue about "wedge issues," small differences blown out of proportion by politicians who know anger will get them votes. It's easier to hate your neighbors than it is to accept than to accept that there is an eventual time for accounting for all superpowers, and that time for America is now.

In this film, three generations of family gets together in a dilapidated NYC apartment to celebrate Thanksgiving. From the first shot of the film, it's clear that the family comes together out of duty, and not because they want to be together. They can't agree on anything, except that every family member feels as if the other family members have failed him. The resentment floats in a thick miasma in an apartment that looks like nothing good has ever happened there.

With the camera as silent witness, what's haunting each family member is revealed. It's exquisitely painful filmmaking, and an incredible lesson from the "show, don't tell" school of playwriting. Every actor delivers a restrained performance so knowing that you want to hug him, but you know he will slap you.

This is what movie making should be.

After watching the film I could tell it would not get much love on IMDb, but I personally liked it. The screenplay is very good. What I liked about it were the dynamics of the family relationships. The acting was really superb by all of the actors. It seemed like the most realistic Thanksgiving film I have ever seen. Not the idealized Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving we normally see.

The film did feel a little dark and creepy, but this isn't a horror film. It's as IMDb describes it, a family drama. So I think many people will watch it expecting horror and be turned off by it. I did love the attention to details. The old deteriorating and depressing tenement building. The banging pipes from a largely empty apartment that amplifies the sounds caused by water bubbles in the plumbing were really on point. The loud footsteps. The first couple of days in a new apartment in a large city can be frightening especially when you don't have all of your lighting in place and you are left with large empty spaces with dark shadows with strange sounds.

I am giving this film an 8 because I felt the dialog was very organic and realistic. I felt like someone inside this apartment witnessing this Thanksgiving reunion and listening to these people. It's is bleak and depressing but it was good. Another good job from A24.

I just watched this on Showtime. I had no idea Amy Schumer was in it. Her part was very small. Not sure why there are so many haters. How she "ruined" the film escapes me. As for the film, I was intrigued. Not a lot transpired. I don't know why I had the impression it was a ghost story, because it's not. Moody and creepy. Reminded me of my apartment in NYC that was very old, with bathtub in the kitchen. I want to recommend it because I like Richard Jenkins (he's always good) but I just can't. Hard to embrace a story that doesn't really go anywhere. I still gave it a 5.