Serving up the family dinner from hell
Beanie Feldstein on hosting the world’s most passive-aggressive get-together in THE HUMANS
THANKSGIVING, THAT MOST American of holidays, is fertile ground for awkward cinematic get-togethers, from Planes, Trains And Automobiles to Paul Blart, Mall Cop. But it’s rarely been as clenched-sphincter awkward as in The Humans, writer-director Stephen Karam’s adaptation of his own one-act play, which sees young couple Brigid (Beanie Feldstein) and Richard (Steven Yeun) host a family dinner at their tiny, creaking, damp Manhattan apartment; as time goes on, it becomes closer to a horror film than a happy family portrait.
“I know it’s an obvious word, but [the film] is such a true reflection of human existence,” says Feldstein, the aforementioned co-host. “I feel like it’s a very deep movie and sometimes that means it’s deeply funny and deeply heart-wrenching. But the love between them is so real.” She then adds, cheerfully: “It’s like watching love morph itself in different ways throughout the film. Sometimes that love transforms into overprotection, resentment or claustrophobia!”
Feldstein — who saw the original Broadway show in 2016 as a punter (“I live in New York and everyone was talking about it,” she recalls) — says the film offers profound insights into the complicated dynamics of family life. “From the moment Erik, the father played by Richard Jenkins, steps into the apartment, he’s already criticising her choice of apartments,” she says. It’s passive-aggression that comes from a place of love. “He’s scared for her. He doesn’t think it’s safe.”
More fascinating still is the relationship between Brigid and her mother, Deidre (played by Jayne Houdyshell, who Feldstein saw in the original stage show). “I think for Brigid, her mother is a mirror,” Feldstein says, “and it can be really painful to look into a mirror.” From the conflicts on religion to the sniping about food, the film is painfully true-to-life for mothers and daughters everywhere. “I certainly speak to my mom in a way that I would never speak to any other human being,” she admits. “Only because I love her so deeply and I know that she will love me to the ends of the Earth. When you consider that Stephen Karam is neither a mother or daughter, I don’t understand how he does it, because it is so real.”
As secrets are revealed and the claustrophobia becomes oppressive, events in the film build to an unhappy crescendo — but Feldstein wants to be optimistic. “There’s so much genuine love and loyalty between [the family],” she says. “Weirdly, I find it devastating and yet oddly hopeful. Maybe it could open up some conversations in a meaningful way for people, after watching the film — using us as a way into a conversation in your own life, perhaps?” The next great post-turkey sofa-watch may have just been found.
THE HUMANS IS ON CURZON HOME CINEMA FROM 24 DECEMBER AND IN CINEMAS FROM 26 DECEMBER