The Cronenberg Kids

With 'Humane,' David Cronenberg's daughter follows in the footsteps of both her father and her older brother.

Can you imagine what it would be like growing up with David Cronenberg for a father? I mean, I’d wager having any director for a parent comes with its challenges, but still: Bryce Dallas Howard had to contend with daddy liking middle-of-the-road awards bait, but David Cronenberg’s kids had to contend with daddy liking transgressive body horror. It must have made an impression.

Both of Cronenberg’s children from his second marriage have now become feature film directors themselves, and their work is very much in the same vein as their father’s. Brandon Cronenberg's three features, including last year’s Infinity Pool, are deliberately paced, somber, oblique, and gross; Caitlin Cronenberg’s just-released feature directing debut, Humane, is bleakly satirical, to the point, stagey, and gross. Brandon’s work is descended from Videodrome and Crash; Caitlin’s work is descended from The Fly and A History of Violence.

To what degree that difference stems from Brandon being a writer/director and Caitlin, thus far at least, being solely a director, I couldn’t say… but I would note again that Humane could work as a play, which is not true of Brandon’s films to date (and that’s just an observation, not a diss).

Written and produced by Michael Sparaga, Humane is set the day after tomorrow, when an environmental disaster has put a severe strain on critical resources. The world’s governments have responded to the crisis with something called the Amsterdam Accord, in which they have each agreed to reduce their population by 20% within a year. The Canadian government is doing its part via what they’ve dubbed “enlistment”: if you volunteer to be euthanized, your beneficiaries get $250,000, tax-free.

Despite this enticement, as the deadline approaches, Canada finds itself severely behind its quota; consequently, the government is now floating such controversial ideas as allowing those under 18 to enlist, or outright “conscripting” the necessary portion of the population.

This is the world in which a retired Brian Williams-esque television journalist, Charles York (Peter Gallagher), and his second wife, a celebrity chef named Dawn Kim (Uni Park), gather his four adult children at their home for dinner. These include Jared (Jay Baruchel), an anthropologist who has recently left his wife and son for a much younger woman and who, for reasons I didn’t understand, seems to also be a public spokesperson for the conservative government (he calls the situation “the Asian crisis”); Rachel (Emily Hampshire), a recently-ousted pharmaceutical CEO, and her daughter, Mia (Sirena Gulamgaus); Noah (Sebastian Chacon), an adopted piano prodigy and addict in recovery; and Ashley (Alanna Bale), an aspiring actress.

To know anything more than that is, in my opinion, to wander into spoiler territory (although the trailer will tell you much more than that). Suffice it to say, as bleak as Humane is - and make no mistake, Humane is stomach-churning due to its intellectual provocation as much as its gore - it’s also often quite funny. I’ve seen some criticisms that the characters are mostly awful people, which completely overlooks that Humane is a satire; the characters being unlikable is a big part of the point.

The gallows humor doesn’t preclude Humane from also functioning as a very scary thriller. The film very artfully layers conflict on top of conflict on top of conflict, consistently ratcheting up the tension in ways that spring organically from the characters. And because Humane’s nightmarish reality feels very close to home, it’s all more than a little distressing. Matters of life and death being subject to a malfunctioning government, red tape, fine print, and, above all else, big profits? Who could ever imagine such a thing???

And despite their lack of charm, each character does get time to be a human being. This even includes Bob (Canadian goddamn treasure Enrico Colantoni), an employee of the government’s Department of Citizen Strategy who is “the bad guy” of the piece (to whatever degree the piece has any “good guys” or “bad guys”). True to its name, Humane may be brutal, but it isn’t cruel.

Brandon Cronenberg’s best film to date remains 2020’s Possessor. The movie is about a hired killer (Andrea Riseborough) who, through the magic of sci-fi technology, very literally takes control of other people to carry out assassinations. She also has a husband and a young son, with whom she struggles to connect in between executions.

After its horrifically violent opening sequences, Possessor becomes a slow burn. Its big-idea hook is a literal expression of its more intimate theme: at work, Riseborough’s character is literally not herself, while at home, Riseborough’s character is metaphorically not herself. Who is she, authentically - a wife and mother, or a cold-blooded murderer?

Possessor pulls no punches: its violence may be upsetting, but not nearly so much as its narrative. Those looking for a happy Hollywood story that’s all tied up with a neat bow and a reassuring message at the end should look elsewhere.