Trying Too Hard Is One Facet of ‘Human Nature’

Titles like “Human Nature”--or “Happiness” or “Pleasantville” or even “Parenthood”--are more or less guilty pleas in advance that what you’re going to get is Irony with a capital I, the name being merely a mask for the unfettered, unadorned Truth that will be revealed once the credits start to roll. It isn’t exactly false advertising--we’re in on the joke from the start; we know about the malignant story behind the benign title. What might be bogus is the claim that these movies are comedies.

“Human Nature” is not exactly “Being John Malkovich,” the previous film scripted by Charlie Kaufman and one whose concept was so delightfully farfetched you hardly noticed there was so little going on. “Human Nature” offers no such distractions. The point that humans are, by their very nature, fonts of self-interest has been a basic tenet of law, history and art since law, history and art began. And, in most cases, has been a lot funnier than “Human Nature.”

One line contains the sum of the movie’s message. It is spoken by research scientist Nathan Bronfman (Tim Robbins), who is trying to facilitate the assimilation of ape man Puff (Rhys Ifans) into the modern world: “When in doubt, don’t ever do what you really want to do.” It’s funny, it’s biting, it’s wise. And it’s a nugget of wisdom we hardly needed “Human Nature” to impart.

“Human Nature” is a goofball movie, in the way “Malkovich” was, but it tries too hard. Director Michel Gondry, a well-respected commercial director (most celebrated for several Levi’s ads), seems convinced that Kaufman is onto something, but his own directorial choices are far more amusing than Kaufman’s script. Having the follicularly challenged Lila Jute (Patricia Arquette) photographed in the faux-antique Kodachrome colors of an old Disney documentary while crooning about the glories of being a hairy nature girl certainly makes the scene. The iris-y flashbacks to Nathan’s childhood, in which his parents (Robert Forster and Mary Kay Place) lecture him about the evils of natural life (“Never wallow in the filth of instinct”) are funny in and of themselves.

But “Human Nature” is a rather sophomoric exercise in cynicism written by a very successful writer of screenplays. How capital I-ronic is that?

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MPAA rating: R, for sexuality/nudity and language. Times guidelines: adult situations and humor.

John Anderson writes about movies for Newsday, a Tribune company.

‘Human Nature’

Tim Robbins...Nathan Bronfman

Patricia Arquette...Lila Jute

Rhys Ifans...Puff

Miranda Otto...Gabrielle

Rosie Perez...Louise

Robert Forster...Nathan’s father

Mary Kay Place...Nathan’s mother

Fine Line Features and Studio Canal present a Good Machine production, in association with Beverly Detroit Studios and Partizan, released by Fine Line. Director Michel Gondry. Producers Anthony Bregman, Ted Hope, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman. Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman. Cinematographer Tim Maurice Jones. Editor Russell Icke. Costume designer Nancy Steiner. Music Graeme Revell. Production designer K.K. Barrett. Art director Peter Andrus. Set decorator Gene Serdena. Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes.

In limited release.