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Human Nature
Obsessive scientist Nathan and his lover, the naturalist Lila, discover Puff: a man born and raised in the wild. As Nathan trains the wild man in the civilized ways of the world, Lila fights to preserve the man’s natural state. In the power struggle that ensues, an unusual love triangle emerges.
2001 · Directed by Michel Gondry · 96 min · Drama · Comedy · Screenplay in the scene database · 3 frames
Tagline
In the Interest of Civilization… Conform.
Plot
Three characters are recounting events from their intertwined lives; Puff, a man who was raised as a chimpanzee in the wilderness, makes a testimony in front of Congress; writer Lila Jute is giving a statement to the police after her arrest; deceased psychologist Nathan Bronfman addresses an unseen audience in the afterlife. Their stories are told in flash-back.
Lila is a woman with a rare hormonal imbalance which causes thick hair to grow all over her body. During her 20s after a brief freak show gig, Lila decides to leave society and live within nature where she feels free to exist comfortably in her natural state. She writes a successful book about her naked, savage, happy, and free life in the woods embracing nature. Then at age thirty, strong sexual desire causes her to return to civilization and have her hair removed in order to find a partner.
The partner she finds is Dr. Nathan Bronfman, a psychologist researching the possibility of teaching table manners to mice. Lila and Nathan go hiking in the woods one day. Lila sights a naked man acting like an ape in the woods who has lived as a wild animal his entire life. Lila discards her clothes and chases him until he's cornered on a tree branch. The man falls off the branch, knocked unconscious. Brought to Nathan's lab, the man is named Puff, after Nathan's French research assistant Gabrielle's childhood dog; a phone call to an unknown person reveals that Gabrielle is actually an American with a fake French accent. First with the help of Gabrielle and later with Lila's help, Nathan performs conditioned reinforcement training on Puff, inculcating him with a veneer of fine manners and high culture, in spite of which Puff still has difficulty controlling sexual urges.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Charlie Kaufman
- Cinematography: Tim Maurice-Jones
- Edited by: Russell Icke
- Music: Graeme Revell
- Production design: K.K. Barrett
- Produced by: Anthony Bregman, Ted Hope, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman
Cast
- Tim Robbins as Nathan Bronfman
- Patricia Arquette as Lila Jute
- Rhys Ifans as Puff
- Miranda Otto as Gabrielle
- Mary Kay Place as Nathan's Mother
- Robert Forster as Nathan's Father
- Peter Dinklage as Frank
- Rosie Perez as Louise
- Hilary Duff as Young Lila Jute
- Miguel Sandoval as Wendall the Therapist
Production
- Country: France, United States of America
- Language: French, English
- Studios: StudioCanal, Fine Line Features, Good Machine, Beverly Detroit Studios
- Budget: $6,000,000
- Box office: $1,600,000
- Themes: mentally disabled, individual, human evolution, experiment, small person, sexuality, philosophy, professor, mouse, arts and culture
More by Michel Gondry
On this film
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