an science overcome instinct? This is the question posed in this film from the Academy-Award-nominated screenwriter of Being John Malkovich. As the story is told simultaneously by three different characters (one of them narrating from beyond the grave), we learn that science and nature make strange bedfellows indeed.
Lila Jute (Arquette) is a real nature girl. Since the age of 12, when she started growing hair all over her body, she has felt like an outcast, preferring to live in the forest, where her only neighbors are just as furry as she is. It's only when she reaches sexual maturity and can no longer ignore her carnal urges that she returns to society in search of a mate. She finds one in behavioral psychologist Nathan Bronfman (Robbins). Nathan's scientific theory that natural instincts can and should be controlled is the antithesis of Lila's let-it-all-hang-out philosophy. He tells her that his current experiment is teaching table manners to mice. Desperate for love, Lila puts her own feelings aside to be with Nathan, hiding her hirsute condition by shaving her body every night.
One day, while on a nature hike, Lila and Nathan come upon a wild man living in the forest. Nathan sees this as an opportunity to further his research and vows to civilize the feral man. Puff, as he is named, makes little progress at first. Then he witnesses a late-night tryst in the lab between Nathan and his assistant Gabrielle (Miranda Otto), and becomes obsessed with sex. As Puff looks back on the incident, he narrates his thoughts on this life-changing event: "I wanted me some of that," he says,
with careful articulation.
Puff makes amazing progress, transforming himself into a gentleman under Nathan's tutelage. Lila stands by idly, trapped between her love for Nathan and her own principles. When she discovers that Nathan has been unfaithful with Gabrielle, however, she can no longer ignore her conscience, and frees
Puff from the lab. She returns with him to the forest in an attempt to reintroduce him to nature. But can he unlearn all that Nathan has taught him? And does he even want to?
A quirky comedy a hair above the rest
Human Nature is the second feature from Charlie Kaufman, who earned critical praise for his first film, Being John Malkovich, in 1999. With his latest effort, he sets out to prove that Malkovich was no fluke, and indeed displays much of the same offbeat sense of humor and originality in storytelling that set that film apart.
Although Michel Gondry's direction doesn't approach the adeptness and understanding of Kaufman's comedic sensibility that Spike Jonze demonstrated in Malkovich, he does have a feel for the surreal. When Arquette, utterly naked except for a thick coat of body hair, breaks into song about 15 minutes into the film, you know you are watching something other than the standard, mindless movieplex fare. And with brilliantly absurd lyrics like "Now I'm free, no more cares, I've accepted all of my hairs," it's a welcome departure.
The characters are complex and well drawn without becoming cliche. Arquette's loopy personality is well suited to the free-spirited Lila. Ifans also does an admirable job in making Puff's transformation from untamed beast to mannered gentleman believable. Robbins, however, is wasted as the repressed Nathan. Using a strange, almost British-sounding accent, he seems to be sleepwalking through the film. Rosie Perez is drastically underused in an unfortunately skimpy role as Lila's electrotherapist.
Good and not-so-good performances aside, it's not often these days that a film comedy actually has something of substance to say besides going for a broad laugh here or a gross-out joke there. This film has much to say about what natural instincts can and cannot be controlled, and it says it in an
unconventional way. The emphasis on sex and sexual deviance might be a little heavy-handed—every character in the film seems to be motivated by sexual urges—but it all serves to prove the point that no matter how evolved we become, we cannot escape the needs of our own bodies.
