A dysfunctional family is pushed to the brink in Humane. The horror-thriller is set in the near future, where the Earth’s resources have dwindled to extinction-level concerns, forcing countries to have to reduce their populations by 20%. With this came the creation of the Department of Citizen Strategy, a government-funded organization that is tasked with carrying out a euthanasia program to help with the overpopulation crisis.
Humane particularly focuses on the Yorks, a dysfunctional family of wealthy socialites whose children find their existence rocked when their father announces at a dinner that he and his wife have enlisted in the euthanasia program. When his plan goes awry, the rest of the family is tasked with choosing one of themselves to enlist. This results in a high-tension night of arguments, fighting, and drama as the Yorks come to realize how deep blood runs.
The darkly comedic social thriller hails from director Caitlin Cronenberg, the daughter of famed horror filmmaker David Cronenberg making her feature directorial debut with the project. Cronenberg has assembled an all-star cast for Humane, including Blackberry‘s Jay Baruchel, Schitt’s Creek‘s Emily Hampshire, Peter Gallagher, Enrico Colantoni, Sebastian Chacon, Alanna Bale, Sirena Gulamgaus and Uni Park. Deftly walking the line between a dysfunctional family comedy and a bloody horror-thriller, the movie is a timely and pulse-pounding affair.
In anticipation of the movie’s release, Screen Rant interviewed director Caitlin Cronenberg and stars Jay Baruchel and Emily Hampshire to discuss Humane, finding the unique rhythm of the movie’s various tones, how Baruchel and Hampshire’s longtime friendship benefited their sibling relationship in the movie, and Baruchel’s thoughts on the How to Train Your Dragon live-action reboot.
Though coming from cinematic royalty and having her own background in the world of movies as a photographer, Cronenberg had yet to make the leap to feature-length filmmaking before Humane, having helmed the 2018 short The Endings and 2021’s The Death of David Cronenberg. With Michael Sparaga’s script, though, she finally found the perfect project to step into the director’s chair:
Despite playing a brother and sister literally at each other’s throats for the entire movie, Baruchel and Hampshire had a long friendship heading into Humane. With the movie presenting a fine tonal line for the stars to walk, they ultimately found that this prior bond helped them find both the rhythm of the story as well as their characters’ dynamic:
More than just their own prior friendship, Hampshire and Baruchel had their own shared pasts with Cronenberg herself, having worked together on a handful of projects, as well as being friends in general. The former actor even humorously recalled being somewhat nervous of how Cronenberg would fare in her directorial debut, but being thrilled after just one day of shooting:
Being cast to play a somewhat antagonistic character also led Hampshire, Cronenberg and Baruchel to discover a hilarious subreddit dedicated to the latter celebrating a particular kind of role he rarely plays:
With pretty much the entirety of the movie taking place over the course of one night in the York family home, the actual set was key to helping amplify the tension of the story. For Cronenberg, she recalled landing on the “Gothic mansion” the movie was filmed in as it “fit the bill perfectly“, while also recalling the unique way they lit many of the scenes to subtly hint at the changing tone of Humane:
Among his various acclaimed roles, one of Baruchel’s most popular is Hiccup in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy. With a new incarnation of the books being adapted with a live-action reboot now starring Mason Thames as Hiccup, Baruchel couldn’t be more “psyched” for returning writer/director Dean DeBlois, who regularly sends the star “pictures of the crazy set” and feeling the filmmaker “hasn’t made enough s–t yet“. As for advice to his successors, Baruchel just invites them to enjoy the ride and carry the legacy of the franchise on:
HUMANE takes place over a single day, mere months after a global ecological collapse has forced world leaders to take extreme measures to reduce the earth’s population. In a wealthy enclave, a recently retired newsman has invited his grown children to dinner to announce his intentions to enlist in the nation’s new euthanasia program. But when the father’s plan goes horribly awry, tensions flare and chaos erupts among his children.
Source: Screen Rant Plus