'Human Nature' wacky examination of human shortcomings

By Marshall Fine
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

HUMAN NATURE (Rated R for profanity, nudity, graphic violence) Three and One-Half stars (Good-to-Excellent). The nature-nurture debate is taken to comic extremes in this wild comedy about a man reared in the wild who is tamed by scientists. Starring Tim Robbins, Patricia Arquette and Rhys Ifans. Directed by Michel Gondry. Fine Line Features, 92 minutes.

Directed by first-timer Michel Gondry, this offbeat comedy is told in flashback from the varying viewpoints of its three central characters. There's Lila Jute (Patricia Arquette), a sociologist who has spent most of her life away from people because of an extreme problem involving personal grooming. There's Nathan Bronfman (Tim Robbins), a behavioral scientist whose strict upbringing has warped his scientific method (he's trying to teach table manners to lab mice). And the singularly named Puff (Rhys Ifans), the object of their mutual research.

Puff, it seems, was taken from his suburban home as a child by his father (who went mad) and reared in the wild. Nathan and Lila, who have commenced a passionate affair, discover him swinging naked through the trees and bring him back to civilization where Nathan ensconces him in a climate-controlled lab environment. There, Nathan will prove once and for all that nurture beats nature every time.

Yet their personal natures can't be helped. That includes Nathan's emotionally infantile response to his seductive assistant, Gabrielle (Miranda Otto), as well as his bizarre relationship with his controlling parents (Robert Forster and Mary Kay Place). Lila, meanwhile, can't help but feel that Puff's wild, simian instincts have as much value as Nathan's prized manners, particularly when, through various aversion therapies administered by Nathan, Puff is turned into a opera-loving, smoking-jacket-wearing fop (who can't quite control those carnal impulses).

"Human Nature" is the year's happiest surprise, a movie that deals with a real subject in an always surprising way. The contrast between their high-mindedness and their often petty and low behavior makes for unexpected laughs, with Gondry never losing his grip on the increasingly ridiculous plot. If Kaufman's script can't quite figure out how to end, well, it makes for a jolly ride nonetheless.

Gondry draws strong comic performances from Robbins, as a snit-prone obsessive, while Arquette brings a radiant sweetness to Lila that can't quite mask a certain anger at her lot in life (remember that grooming problem?). Ifans has a delightful deadpan sweetness as the wonderfully named Puff, who is taught to be a man and realizes that being a monkey was a lot more fun.

Light and deft, "Human Nature" could turn out to be the year's smartest comedy. There's certainly been no competition so far.