It appears David Cronenberg may have two children who have inherited his directoral chops. Caitlin Cronenberg's debut feature Humane finds just the right balance for its somewhat absurdist story between dark drama and dark humour and she doesn't compromise on making any of the questions the film raises easy to answer. Overall it is a promising and fascinating debut from a film maker who will define her own future from here.
The story about a near future world where governments pay their population to voluntarily choose euthanasia to reduce the population and the specifics of the family we follow are somewhat on the preposterous side, but Cronenberg does an excellent job of handling that and setting the stage for her story. She keeps the story tight, adding just enough (quite dark) humour to relieve the tension without making anything feel silly. This allows her film to ask its questions while also entertaining us along the way.
This is the part I found the most fascinating about Humane. It would have been easy to make things quite clear in terms of good guys/bad guys, morality and immorality. But she throws that out the window to make you dislike almost everyone and yet still see their points of view and questions the assumptions. This is one of those films where the main "antagonist" (if you can call Bob that) may not be entirely wrong and we question why we find ourselves rooting for whomever we do.
Humane is a very watchable film that will have you reflecting on its issues for a long time after. It also makes me eager to see what Cronenberg will do next.
Humane
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire, Sebastian Chacon, Enrico Colantoni, Peter Gallagher, Alanna Bale, Sirena Gulamgaus, Uni Park
Director: Caitlin Cronenberg
Writer: Michael Sparaga
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