Aah, nature. It's so inviting and peaceful and so ... fundamental. But it can also be swampy and muddy and an easy place to get lost without direction. So, maybe it's no surprise that "Human Nature," a new film starring Tim Robbins and Patricia Arquette, is so quickly mired in quicksand.
Is this a comedy? Let's hope it's not a musical, as it appears to be early on when a naked, bearded Lila Jute (Arquette) bursts into song while communing with her nature-loving side. Clearly, there's a message we're supposed to take home from this addled Aesop's fable, and it's not, "don't make a half-baked film."
The film opens with Nathan Bronfman (Robbins) lying dead on the forest floor and telling his side of the story from an entirely white, completely furnished room, presumably in heaven, perhaps purgatory (does it rain there? There are two white umbrellas near the door!).
{INSERT_RELATED}Lila Jute is afflicted with a rare condition that causes her to grow hair all over her body. An outcast, she becomes a nature writer and spends much of her life alone in the woods. On a return to civilization she meets Robbins, a psychologist trying to teach mice good table manners thanks to a mania instilled in him by his anal retentive adoptive parents.
They fall in love and on a hike, they come across a feral man (Rhys Ifans) who was raised as an ape in the woods by his father. The doctor wants to switch his research from mice to man and takes the apeman, whom he names Puff after the childhood pet of his faux-French assistant Gabrielle (Miranda Otto), back to the city and proceeds to transform him into the sort of cultured, anal retentive man that might heed the doctor's advice, and I paraphrase, "when in doubt, do the opposite of what you feel."
A ha! That's it, we're supposed to be more in touch with mother earth and with our own feelings and emotions. Great. It's just too bad there wasn't a better way to get this message across. Sure, the film -- written by Charlie Kaufman, who wrote "Being John Malkovich," and directed by Frenchman Michel Gondry ("Drugstore," pop videos by Bjork and others) -- has some extremely funny quips and scenes, but not enough to support a 96-minute film.
Wait for the DVD and an excessively rainy day.
"Human Nature" opens at Landmark's Downer Theatre, Fri., April 12. Click here for showtimes.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
