Charlie Kaufman's Angels: Human Nature

Continuing our look at Kaufman’s films, “Human Nature” proves to be one of his most philosophically hairy tales.

“Human Nature”, Charlie Kaufman’s second produced feature script, directed by the the always inventive Michel Gondry, is a film that feels almost of another species than his earlier “Being John Malkovich”. While most of Kaufman’s films could (if they had to) be classified into a genre-bending surrealism, “Human Nature” has a different texture, more closely related to an old screwball slapstick with pratfalls and all. The film’s themes are still all familiarly Kaufman’s, but Gondry’s sugary coating gives it a flavor draws back some eerie moments that would probably be much darker within the hands of another director. Kaufman, often described the film as “a comedy, but sad”, a phrase completely accurate, entirely cryptic, and absolutely on brand for the writer.

“Human Nature” centers around the triple-knotted relationship between Nathan (a permed Tim Robbins), an insatiable psychologist researching human behavior in mice, his nature-writer wife Lila (Patricia Arquette), diagnosed with a patchy hypertrichosis causing her to grow excess body hair, and Puff (Rhys Ifans), raised in the wilderness all his life only to be roped into Nathan’s civilization experiment putting Puff’s social transformation from Tarzan to Tupperware at the center. Much to the scientists surprise (and later demise), not only does the former feral man learn table manners, but he absorbs enough information to become quite the philosopher. From Puff’s initial capture to his eventual and forced humanization, Kaufman’s script weaves through a menage-a-trois of ideologies at odds with one another.

After an initial scene featuring lab mice scurrying through the forest (a slight echoing of the puppet that opens “Being John Malkovich”,) most of the film is told in flashback. Kaufman begins with three characters at the ends of their journeys: Puff testifies in front of an Congress-esque body of government; Lila is interrogated by a trio of yawning police; Nathan chats in purgatory with an invisible audience. From there, “Human Nature” weaves its way to the start, and once again, the idea of “looking back” ingrains itself into Kaufman’s body of work. The journey is filled with stand out moments such as Lila’s Disney-esque song about body hair acceptance or the wonderful sequence displaying a riotous, step-by-step log of Puff’s socialization. I especially enjoy Miranda Otto’s portrayal of Nathan’s lab parter-in-crime, Gabrielle, and Peter Dinklage’s strange yet welcome inclusion into the project, thus confirming Kaufman’s preoccupation with little people during his early works.

The comedy in the film is a little sweeter and softer than Kaufman’s usual, through it might have something to do with Gondry’s directorial approach. Even in melancholic scenes, there is a feeling of an implied laugh track at the absurdity of it all. One of the of main differences between this script and his other works is its decision to place absurdity over surrealism. While a story like “Being John Malkovich” or “Synecdoche, New York” is reliant on character’s subconsciousness, “Human Nature” is a film more concerned with showing the absurdities present in society. The script almost behaves more similar to a creature film or a screwball comedy, rather than the broody, melancholic, surrealism that exists before and after its place in the Kaufman timeline. It’s almost as if we are experiencing another part of the writer’s brain— a side more upfront about its questions, unashamed to play out hypotheticals as real events.

Much like “Being John Malkovich”, “Human Nature” deals with a selection of humanity’s biggest questions. What makes us human? What makes us animal? And what does body hair have to do with it? However, unlike its predecessor, Kaufman’s second film prefers to think out loud. This time, his characters are not quiet puppeteers or tortured artists, but scientists and pontificators, shouting their hypotheses to anyone within earshot. “Human Nature” introduces audiences to characters not represented in “Being John Malkovich”, but essential to some of his other works— the talkers and the ‘schmoozers’. Nathan Bronfman could be seen as prototype for characters like Donald Kaufman in (“Adaptation”) or Michael Stone (“Anomalisa”), walking a path paved with good intentions only to lead to a predictably horrible destination.

Early on in “Human Nature”, Nathan lays out the central fallacy of the film while on a first date with Lila, who came to him via recommendation from a friend.

“Rudeness and vulgarity are the norms, ergo if I can teach table manners to mice, I can teach them to humans. And if I can teach table manners to humans, then maybe I can make the world a little bit… safer.”

But safer for who? His experimentation on animals combined with his treatment of his wife, equate to a vengeful trauma under the guise of science. Putting the weight on personal achievement, rather than the end goal of “safer” (whatever that means) allows greedy ambition will rear its ugly head.

Although a showcase of his range in character and tone, the film is not Kaufman’s most well-regarded scripts by any means. The cold truth of the matter is, any film directly after “Malkovich” and it’s widespread acclaim, no matter what topic or approach, would be in a difficult position. The film’s biggest success, perhaps, is the working relationship with Gondry that would flourish into “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. “Human Nature” would go on to become the odd duck in his body of work. It’s abysmal box office numbers and consistent lukewarm reactions from critics across the board (something that Charlie Kaufman never cared about to begin with,) would with the film’s footprint on cinema; the core of the film reduced to Kaufman’s beautifully melancholic description. “A comedy, but it’s sad.”