If you're looking for the perfect Thanksgiving movie to help you realize your dysfunctional family gathering could be worse, look no further than The Humans, Stephen Karam's screen adaptation of his Tony Award winning play.
Karam makes his feature film directorial debut with this adaptation, and he does a masterful job of turning the dilapidated New York city apartment setting into a character all its own, with its increasingly dark hallways, dingy windows that never give a clear view of the outside, and seeping walls and ceilings. (Anyone who has lived outside of a big city may wonder "Why would anyone choose to live there??" I, instead, marveled at the apartment's space - two stories!--and wondered about the amount of closets.)
Beanie Feldstein and Steven Yeun play Brigid and Richard, the young couple who have just moved into the apartment, who are hosting Brigid's family for a bare bones Thanksgiving dinner. Richard Jenkins and Jayne Houdyshell are the parents, June Squibb is the grandmother, and Amy Schumer is the sister. As tends to be the case at many a Thanksgiving gathering, family tensions rise, secrets are revealed, and the home they are sitting in may very well be haunted. (OK, that last bit is perhaps a tad less common.)
The cast is universally excellent, and by creating such a vividly realized set, director Karam manages to keep the film from feeling too stagey. It's part family drama, part horror movie, aka...Thanksgiving.
The Humans is currently playing in select theaters and is also streaming on Showtime.
Bruised is another directorial debut, this time from Halle Berry, who also stars, as Jackie Justice a former MMA fighter who left the sport after a humiliating defeat, and is attempting to make a comeback.
If that sounds pretty cliched, how about a few more, just to add to the fun? She's also struggling with alcoholism, an abusive partner, and hello! What's this? It's the sudden reappearance of the child she abandoned as an infant! And believe it or not, that isn't the end of the cliches that pepper this predictable tale.
Berry gives a good performance, and the fight sequences are at least well staged. But there is nothing in Bruised that hasn't been done, and done better, in countless sports films that have preceded it.
Bruised is currently streaming on Netflix.
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