HUMANE - Mark Reviews Movies

Humane, IFC Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 25, 2024

The first act of Humane is filled with troubling ideas, compelling characters within a dysfunctional family, and a mounting sense of impending doom. Everything after that feels like an entirely different movie.

The ideas are still there, for sure, but how couldn't they be? Michael Sparaga's screenplay establishes an unsettling future, in which the climate crisis has escalated to such a degree that human life and society are no longer compatible with the environment and quickly diminishing resources. People have to carry umbrellas or cover themselves whenever they're outside, while windows are covered with UV-blocking film, because solar radiation is too intense. People gather in lines to obtain water, and certain foods are almost impossible to get.

With everything past the breaking point, the United Nations and its member governments have come up with a solution. Each country will have to eliminate 20% of its population in a year's time. In the country of the story's setting (likely Canada, given the production), the government has put a generic, neutral spin on this horrific process, referring to volunteering for euthanasia as "enlisting," since the world is at war with the environmental catastrophe, and even broadcasting inspirational ads highlighting the lives and sacrifices of those who have enlisted to die.

That's the backdrop of director Caitlin Cronenberg's debut feature, which begins with a chilling sense of realism for this speculative future. Is the movie a warning about how we're currently ignoring the increasing warning signs of climate change? Yes, it most certainly is. Is this story a cautionary tale about how governments and other massive systems in society can put a positive spin on mass death and convince people to participate? Yes, it's that, too. That the movie treats this setup, not as a platform for some grand message, but as a believable possible future, in which characters try to exist within and even justify such a policy, is why the movie is so effective at first.

We meet the members of a well-to-do family, who will soon be dealing directly with this program. The patriarch is Charles York (Peter Gallagher), a retired TV news anchor, who is preparing for a family dinner with his second wife Dawn (Uni Park), who owned and ran a restaurant until recently. Half of his adult children are Jared (Jay Barcuhel), an academic who supports the euthanasia plan and is often on television arguing in its favor, and Rachel (Emily Hampshire), the CEO of a pharmaceutical company that is currently mired in controversy. The other two are Noah (Sebastian Chacon), the adopted son who is in recovery after causing a car crash, and Ashley (Alanna Bale), an aspiring actress who's struggling to find any kind of gig.

The gathering initially plays as a domestic drama, as the kids try to figure out why their emotionally distant father is suddenly being so nice to them and Charles builds up to the inevitable announcement that he and Dawn have enlisted. None of the kids want that to happen, of course, but their rationales for attempting to convince their father to opt out of the plan get at something deeper about them and sinister about the already horrific mass-killing program. Sparaga marries idea and character within the drama, and then, someone is at the door.

He's Bob (Enrico Colantoni), a contracted worker with government's newest entity: the blandly named—meaning it no one has to deal with the reality of its work—Department of Citizen Strategy. It's time for Peter and Dawn's procedure, but the father is having second thoughts, while Dawn has run away from the house. The contractor is all politeness and smiles, even as he lets the family know that he's not leaving without two bodies.

The rest of the plot, to put it generously, is far less intriguing than the build up to it. To put it less generously, the whole thing becomes fairly routine, as the pointed satire of how the program is run and advertised gives way to broader dark comedy (The performances, which feel grounded for the most part during the setup, become heightened to the point of coming across as caricatures). Essentially, it becomes a thriller, as all the unity between the family members crumbles, forcing them to argue and physically fight over who among them will be that second body.

That it's played for some shocks is disappointing. Yes, Cronenberg is part of a family of filmmakers who do love gruesome sights, but the violence here feels perfunctory, compared to the more disturbing, bloodless terror of the euthanasia program. That it also indulges in so much comedy, especially from Baruchel's performance and Bob's interactions with Rachel's daughter Mia (Sirena Gulamgaus), is simply an odd choice. The material convinces us of its characters, its familial dynamics, and the inherent tension of a world in crisis and the drastic response to it. The tonal shift is almost as severe as the simplification of these thorny ideas to an extended game of cat-and-mouse.

The main issue with Humane, then, is in how it suddenly refuses to engage with the ideas it has put forth. They're just an excuse for an occasionally grisly thriller without much or anything to say.

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