The Humans

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.

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'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.

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.

This movie is based upon a book and a stage play. This movie has only got one small setting: a rundown house in New York City, with broken electricity, cockroaches and extremely noisy neigbours.

And exactly this rundown house is the place where a Thanksgiving dinner is taking place with a family, of whom everybody is crumbling under emotional, financial and health problems.

This doesnt sound attractive to watch. And it definitely is not a cheery Christmas movie. But it is still a decent picture. Here is why:

The good: it's so rewarding and refreshing to see actors concentrating on plain acting. And nothing else. Just that. Long scenes, totally uninterrupted by editing. I see a family get together, who are eating and drinking and talking together. Nothing much happens. But because the acting is top notch, it is still fascinating to watch this family chemistry during a Thanksgiving dinner.

The mood of this movie is (purposely) directed in such a way that I as a viewer get the sense that this place and this family is somehow cursed or haunted in some way. There is a really dark undercurrent. It is definitely NOT horror, but there is an intense depressing, gloomy undercurrent present all the time...which makes for an uncomfortable watch.

Any bad? This is NOT the movie you wanna see at the holidays with your family. Because it's quite depressing, sad and bleak. But it is still definitely worth a watch, although it is probably only suited for the die hard arthouse movie fans, who can stumach a depressing family get together in a cockroach infested house...