The Humans

Turn­ing a Broad­way hit into a film usu­al­ly goes one of two ways: either you cash in on audi­ence good­will and force them to endure an unin­spired, over­long restag­ing (see: Cats); or you carve out some­thing fresh that actu­al­ly feels tai­lored for the screen. Stephen Karam’s The Humans, adapt­ed from his Tony Award-win­ning one-act play, is the lat­ter: a slight but stir­ring cham­ber piece about a work­ing-class fam­i­ly con­ven­ing for Thanks­giv­ing din­ner in post‑9/​11 Manhattan.

Brigid (Beanie Feld­stein) and her dot­ing boyfriend Richard (Steven Yeun) open up their new but creaky home to her par­ents Deirdre (Jayne Houdyshell, repris­ing her role from the orig­i­nal pro­duc­tion) and Erik (Richard Jenk­ins), her sis­ter Aimee (Amy Schumer), and her demen­tia-strick­en grand­moth­er ​“Momo” (June Squibb). Unfold­ing in real-time, pleas­antries quick­ly thaw into deep-seat­ed anx­i­eties that no one is fit to observe. Hot top­ics include: God, diet­ing, mon­ey trou­bles, sex posi­tions, and superfoods.

The ensem­ble will no doubt be the biggest pull for those unfa­mil­iar with the play. Feldstein’s back­ground in the­atre is on full, shim­mer­ing dis­play as Brigid con­tends with her par­ents’ mount­ing crit­i­cisms; Schumer gives a career-best per­for­mance as a chron­i­cal­ly-ill attor­ney still hung-up on her ex-girl­friend; Erik’s 28 years of thank­less jan­i­to­r­i­al labour are hard-worn on Jenk­ins’ face, which soft­ens when­ev­er he tends to Momo; Houdyshell’s matri­arch feels nat­u­ral­ly lived-in; and Yeun’s medi­at­ing politesse is a delight.

Part of the play’s nov­el­ty was its set design: a dilap­i­dat­ed pre­war duplex; the two lev­els cre­at­ing a dip­tych of a sim­ple fam­i­ly. The eye nev­er quite knew where to land, flit­ting between floors in search of a focal point. The film inevitably los­es this spa­tial­i­ty through cuts, but Karam uses the medi­um to his advan­tage, employ­ing extreme close-ups (if maybe a few too many) and fram­ing his char­ac­ters between door­ways to give the impres­sion of a dollhouse.

Traips­ing the same con­gest­ed hall­ways as Emma Seligman’s 2021 debut fea­ture, Shi­va Baby, Karam under­stands the innate hor­rors of fam­i­ly gath­er­ings. The apart­ment takes on the qual­i­ty of a haunt­ed house, with the sounds of trash com­pactors, plumb­ing, wash­ing machines, and a heavy-foot­ed upstairs neigh­bour, all adding to the sense of claus­tro­pho­bia. The walls are paper-thin, allow­ing the sounds to eat away at the Blakes as they inch ten­ta­tive­ly towards dessert.

The Humans won’t work for many – it’s a slow burn with a mean end­ing. Some may insist that the sto­ry lacks cogency off­stage, but it’s those fre­net­ic, inti­mate and often sense­less moments that jus­ti­fy its title.

The Humans is released in cin­e­mas 26 Decem­ber with pre­views on Cur­zon Home Cin­e­ma from Christ­mas Eve.