Foreign Spotlight: Only Human

Meeting your significant other’s family for the first time – a situation that is a both a landmark moment in a relationship, and also a test of sorts as to the strength of the relationship. It is a landmark moment because it means that you are taking the relationship seriously enough to be meeting your significant other’s family. And it is a test of the relationship’s strength because the situation is awkward for all parties involved – your significant other, his or her family, and you. You want to make a good impression on the family. The parents want to make a good impression on you; after all, if the relationship is a success you may be a new addition to the family. And your significant other, your girlfriend, boyfriend, lover, whatever you prefer to call them, wants his or her family to approve of you, to be accepting of you and the relationship. Or perhaps he or she might be seeking the family’s disproval – in which case you are not the first or last person in history to be brought before a family as an act of rebellion and defiance. Or perhaps it is not so black and white – he or she wants her family to like you, but not like you too much; a part of every child will always want to rebel against his or her parents.

Like most potentially disastrous circumstances, meeting the family of someone you are in a relationship with is a situation that has great comedic potential. Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, and Monster in Law have all dealt with this subject before, and luckily there are a few good films that have as well, such as Only Human, the first feature film produced for theatrical release by husband and wife writing/directing team Dominic Harari and Teresa De Pelegri.

The film is set in Madrid where 28-year old Leni is bringing her fiancé Rafi, a somewhat bumbling college professor, to meet her family for the first time. Leni’s family is Jewish, Rafi is Palestinian (if you don’t know much about Middle Eastern history, Jews and Palestian’s have been at war with each other for thousands of years, in a conflict motivated by events that date back to 700 B.C. – think the Montagues and Capulets multiplied by millions). Leni has been misleading her family, particularly her high-strung mother Gloria (Oscar-nominated actress Norma Aleandro – Gaby, La Historia Oficial), leading them to believe Rafi is Israeli. Along with Gloria, waiting for Leni to return home with her fiancé are Leni’s sister, Tania, a belly dancer who goes out (and to bed) with a different man every night; Paula, Tania’s 6-year old fatherless daughter who walks around with a pillow under her shirt insisting she is pregnant; 19-year old David, the youngest sibling, is going through an orthodoxy phase, and pointing out a different violation of the Sabbath every other moment; and Dudu, Gloria’s father, a blind veteran who hasn’t let his handicap stop him from performing knife tricks or showing off his old rifle (“It’s killed four Arabs!”). When it is revealed to Gloria that Rafi is Palestinian (though he has lived in Spain since he was a child) she tells the couple that they are insane. While Leni tries to reassure her mother, Rafi goes to the kitchen to thaw an enormous block of frozen soup that is being served with dinner. But in the hands of the awkward academic, the block of soup ends up going out an open window and onto the head of a passing pedestrian below, who, Rafi soon learns, bears an striking resemblance to Leni’s father, who had not yet arrived home from work, and who now might be dead. What follows is a comedy of errors that meditates on love, sex, religion, family, history and politics.

Dominic Harari and Teresa De Pelegri, who met while in the Master’s program at Columbia University in New York City, have previously co-directed several short films, co-wrote numerous screenplays, and wrote/directed a shot-for-TV feature, Atrapa-La. Their direction in Only Human is spot on, and they demonstrate a knack for not only comedic timing, but dramatic timing as well. And the film is also rife with an intelligence that is missing from so many other comedies. This is a film certainly worth the study of any aspiring filmmakers who dream of one day winning over an audience with their own work.

The very idea of a husband/wife directing team (not to mention the fact that he is English and she Spanish) not only lends credibility to the material they are handling in this film, but also is a statement in itself – in a world of ever-increasing divorce rates and a on-going battle against sexism and gender inequality, they prove that two people can live together as husband and wife and work together on equal terms lends hope to the future. And in that same future I look forward to seeing more work from this husband/wife filmmaking team.

Magnolia Pictures released Only Human on the 16th New York and on the 7th of July in Los Angeles with a wider release to occur in the weeks to come.