Charlie Kaufman had the type of big-screen debut most screenwriters only dream about with his surreal 1999 comedy Being John Malkovich. Not only was Kaufman nominated for Best Original Screenplay by the Academy for the film about the discovery of a portal that leads into the head of the eponymous actor, but critics across the board hailed him as a genius and a genuinely original comic voice. However, such gushing praise seemed just a tad premature.
While Being John Malkovich undoubtedly featured one of the most inspired premises in recent years, the film itself suffered from a considerable gap between the brilliance of its central idea and the disappointing development and execution of that idea, especially in Kaufman's scattershot writing and in Spike Jonze's flat direction. The same problem is displayed in Kaufman's second entry as a screenwriter, Human Nature, directed by Michel Gondry. But unlike Being John Malkovich, which at least had the unique aura of its title subject to compensate for its problems, Human Nature has no fixture at its center to provide any kind of amusement.
This time around Kaufman leaves celebrity head portals aside and instead aims to parody romanticized representations of Wild Man and Nature. But Kaufman sure has chosen an awkward structure to accomplish this. Human Nature begins near the end of its story, immediately after the murder of one of its main characters, the behaviorist Nathan Bronfman (Tim Robbins). The back-tracking narrative is told from three perspectives: Nathan from beyond the grave in a pearly white room, Lila Jute (Patricia Arquette) from prison, and Puff (Rhys Ifans) before a Congressional hearing. As their stories progress and overlap through the miracles of clunky editing, we learn how these three are connected to one another.
Since the age of 12, Lila has suffered from a rare hormonal condition that causes excessive amounts of hair to grow all over her body. Dispirited by her social prospects, Lila retreats into the natural world where she can allow her hair to grow free from human scrutiny and practice the art of nature writing, which will make her a bestselling author. But then her natural urges start to set in and Lila wants a man.
Enter Nathan, a 35-year-old virgin and behaviorist who teaches table manners to mice in his laboratory with his sultry "French" assistant Gabrielle (Miranda Otto). With the help of cosmetic electrolysis, Lila can enter society and a relationship with Nathan as long as he doesn't find out about her abnormal condition. One day, when the couple is out hiking in the woods, they encounter a feral man, Puff. Raised by his now-deceased crazy father who left society after the Kennedy assassination, Puff shows no signs of ever having come in contact with man or civilization. Despite Lila's protests, Nathan decides to take Puff back to his lab and make him the subject of his new socialization project.
The success of Human Nature as a comedy depends largely on the many scenes of Puff's education in social graces and "high culture" and his struggle to fight off his growing sexual urges every time he sees a woman or an image of one. Welsh actor Rhys Ifans, with his distinct physical presence and naughty face, is certainly up to the task, but unfortunately director Gondry is not, and neither is Kaufman's script, which lacks any built-in sense of comic timing. One scene in particular perfectly illustrates this problem. During one socialization session Nathan shows Puff a slide of an attractive woman to which Puff responds by rising from his seat and humping the screen maniacally, forcing Nathan to buzz his electric dog collar until he stops. This set of actions is repeated again and again until any comic impact the scene might have had is totally erased. In the hands of a silent film comic or an early Woody Allen, the scene would have been the film's highlight.
Gondry, who has done fine work in music videos, particularly those with Bjork, never finds his rhythm here. His faux-expressionist sets with their glaringly artificial forests and starry night skies never create a consistent atmosphere or mood and serve only to distract us from the actors. Arquette, always an intriguing onscreen presence, is required to go through several abrupt shifts in character. Of the cast, she suffers most at the hands of the filmmakers, but surely can't be blamed for it. Robbins' work here seems recycled from his previous roles, and Miranda Otto shines in her quirky supporting role. Overall, Human Nature plays by the rule of overkill, and whether it is a natural tendency or not, it certainly reveals Gondry's and Kaufman's lack of discipline as filmmakers.