I’ve had the pleasure of being a film critic for the past 3 years, and one of the greater parts of this job is reviewing unique pieces of art that challenge myself. I love watching the major tentpole movies in a year and finding something deeply personal within them – films like Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga or Dune: Part Two feel like they were made for me. But I also love finding the smaller, weirder films that feel like they came from the soul of someone apart from me. To that end, Shudder has been a phenomenal streaming platform – a streaming platform made for artists and fans of the horror genre.  

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Director Caitlin Cronenberg’s directorial debut, Humane is without a doubt one of those movies made by an artist and for an artist. Writer Michael Sparaga has created a film that voices the anxieties of gen x-ers living in a climate crisis, and Humane is a pointed critique of the individualism within the United States of America.  

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Humane takes place in a future not too far away from our own. The climate has collapsed, and in response, the governments of the world collaborated to reduce planet Earth’s population. A quota has been set for each country to reduce its population by, and with 18 months to reach it, the USA has started an enlistment program for euthanizing its willing civilians.  The rich York family gathers for a family dinner, as the patriarch of the family announces that he and his wife will be enlisting that very night.  

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Part I: A Loaded Premise 

The difficulty of discussing Humane is that for such a simple film, involving 9 core cast members, its near future world has a lot of exposition to tell the audience. The film’s first 30 minutes is entirely devoted to informing the audience of both the world’s state, the government policies, and the inter-family dynamics of the cast. It’s a lot of information, and sadly, it drags out for a long while. 

I love movies and Television shows about rich A-holes. Knives Out and Glass Onion are elevated by their casts of entitled douchebags. I love Succession, a show entirely about a dysfunctional family attempting to claw their way to the top. These pieces of media are defined by the character dynamics and style – Succession wouldn’t be the same without Shiv and Roman getting into a childlike fight in the first 3 episodes. And while Humane is playing within this genre, it fails to make these characters come to life. The characters don’t have enough interactions with each other to highlight their differences beyond the superficial, so we only see each character as a combination of surface level qualities.  

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Part II: Visual Language and Casting 

For as weak of a start as Humane has, once it gets going, it becomes a fascinating small cast thriller. The greatest strength lies in the cast members – Jay Baruchel is phenomenal as the self-centered and self-righteous son, Emily Hampshire gives teeth to a character limited by the script, and Peter Gallagher is terrific as the father of the house. Gallagher has plenty of meaty monologues, and while the pacing of the film suffers from the inclusion of them, Gallagher gives each word weight and sells their inclusion.  

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I also love the inclusion of Enrico Colantoni as Bob, a federal agent working in the enlisting program. Colantoni has a knack for bringing chilling villains to life, and his performance is deeply affecting. I especially adore the small breaks Colantoni adds to Bobs character, those moments when the clinical by the books character has an emotional outburst. It makes for a compelling villain that keeps the film moving.  

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I would be remiss to not discuss the visual style of the film – Cronenberg uses landscape shots to inform the audience about the characters and environment and establish a mood. Humane feels dirty – the abundance of orange/yellow light in outside environments makes shelter feel necessary. Characters use umbrellas to block the sunlight from their skin, and the effect of this is extended when the place of safety – the house – becomes a nightmarish location no one can escape from. The quiet moments are the most impactful – moments focusing on Gallagher breathing in the world for a final day. Once the second act begins, the camera never stays far from our point of view character – it's claustrophobic and intense. 

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And lastly, both Alanna Bale and Sebastian Chacon bring so much soul to the film. As the closest of the four siblings in age, their characters have the most well-defined dynamic, and their performances are the warmest of the bunch.  

It’s why Humane’s ending doesn’t work for me.  

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Part III: Finale 

Psychological Thrillers & Horror movies are defined by their endings. Se7en, Alien, Halloween, The Silence of the Lambs are but a few examples of films which work because of their endings, whether they end in despair or hope. These are all movies defined by their characters, who go through hell and come out of the film stronger, and that emotional payoff works with the audience.  

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Humane is a film which I was a fan of from its second act forward. As the York family must learn to care for each other, I found a fascinating character journey. Whether this family deserve forgiveness is another story, but due to Colantoni’s masterful performance, I was ready for his downfall. I was ready for sweet revenge – and in the last 120 seconds, the film undoes all the character work as this rich family decides not to honor their dead but to make themselves richer. It’s an ending that just soured my experience with the film.  

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It’s an ending that exists more as a critique of our own world’s systems and ideologies. I agree with the perspective of the film, and even I felt emotionally betrayed by its ending. It’s unsatisfying and surreal in ways that I don’t know how to describe.