Synopsis
Erik Blake has gathered three generations of his Pennsylvania family to celebrate Thanksgiving at his daughter’s apartment in lower Manhattan. As darkness falls outside and eerie things start to go bump in the night, the group’s deepest fears are laid bare.
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Cast
- Richard JenkinsErik
- Jayne HoudyshellDeirdre
- Amy SchumerAimee
- Beanie FeldsteinBrigid
- Steven YeunRichard
- June SquibbMomo
Recommendations
- 100
The Guardian
There’s something both reassuring and terrifying about it all, the family’s resilient warmth and togetherness providing comfort as the existential horror of what it all amounts to chills us simultaneously. - 100
The Hollywood Reporter
The film is a remarkably insightful and powerful portrait of the human condition. - 88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
The writer’s adage that the specific is universal comes fully alive in this family drama, written and directed by Stephen Karam, based on his Tony-winning play. - 88
Vanity Fair
Karam makes an auspicious directorial debut, one that captures all the tense, rattling mood of his stage horror while giving it a new, decidedly cinematic shape. - 83
IndieWire
The result is a stilted and unnerving film that chips away at the petrified staginess of its origins with every sudden noise, as if Karam were sledge-hammering little cracks into the hull of his film’s WASPy modern family. - 80
Slashfilm
The cast is dynamite across the board. The way they converse with each other feels wholly natural, as if they've been talking for years. - 70
Screen Daily
The Humans is a marvel of slight shifts in tone and rhythm, guided by a uniformly strong cast of actors who deliver naturalistic performances which show the cracks in their characters’ pleasant veneer. - 60
TheWrap
In the aggregate, Karam’s directing is so meticulously composed about conveying the density of what’s unsaid, and the mood around the people instead of the people creating the mood, that “The Humans” can feel a bit suffocating.
