Human Nature (film)
| Human Nature | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Michel Gondry |
| Produced by | Anthony Bregman Ted Hope Spike Jonze Charlie Kaufman |
| Written by | Charlie Kaufman |
| Starring |
Tim Robbins Patricia Arquette Rhys Ifans Miranda Otto Rosie Perez |
| Music by | Graeme Revell |
| Cinematography | Tim Maurice-Jones |
| Edited by | Russell Icke |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by |
Fine Line Features (United States) Bac Films (France) |
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Release date
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Running time
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96 minutes |
| Country | United States France |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1.5 million |
Human Nature is a 2001 American-French comedy-drama film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry in his directorial debut. The film stars Tim Robbins, Rhys Ifans, Miranda Otto and Patricia Arquette.
It was screened out of competition at the 54th Cannes International Film Festival.
Most of the film is told as flashback: Puff (Rhys Ifans) testifies to Congress, Lila Jute (Patricia Arquette) tells her story to the police, while a dead Nathan Bronfman (Tim Robbins) addresses an unseen audience in the netherworld.
Lila is a woman with a rare hormonal imbalance which causes thick hair to grow all over her body. During her 20s, Lila decides to leave society and live within nature where she feels free to exist comfortably in her natural state. She writes a successful book about her naked, savage, happy, and free life in the woods embracing nature. Then, at age 30, strong sexual desire causes her to return to civilization and have her hair removed in order to find a partner.
The partner she finds is Dr. Nathan Bronfman, a psychologist researching the possibility of teaching table manners to mice. Lila and Nathan go hiking in the woods one day. Lila sights a naked man in the woods who has believed himself to be an ape his entire life. Lila discards her clothes and chases him until he's cornered on a tree branch. The man falls off the branch and fall unconscious as Nathan comes along. Nathan brings this man to his lab where the man is named Puff. This name is after his French research assistant, Gabrielle's (Miranda Otto) childhood dog. We discover later from her phone call to an unknown person that she is actually an American with a fake French accent. First with the help of Gabrielle and later with Lila’s help, Nathan performs extensive manner training on Puff, so that he can speak and go through the motions of appreciating high culture, though he still has difficulty controlling sexual urges.
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