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ONLY HUMAN Send This Review to a Friend
When a young Jewish woman and a Palestinian man fall in love, there can be trouble even if the scene is Madrid instead of Israel. Directors Dominic Harari and Terese De Pelegrí, a husband and wife team who also collaborated on the screenplay, have fashioned a broad family comedy out of this basic setup in “Only Human.” The subtitled import is slight, yet it is often enjoyable thanks to some welcome laughs.
Leni (Marian Aguilera) knows she is in for trouble when she brings home her Palestinian boyfriend Rafi (Guillermo Toledo). Her mother, Gloria, played by distinguished Argentinean actress Norma Aleandro, is aghast when Leni admits that Rafi is a Palestinian instead of the expected Jewish boy, but mom is quickly cowed, except that strange things are happening to make the guy look weird. Trying to be helpful in the kitchen, he accidentally lets a huge container of frozen soup slip out the window and it apparently kills a man in the street below. Is the victim really dead and could he be his fiancée’s father?
The cover up becomes quite funny. Leni’s grandfather is blind and when Rafi sneaks into the bathroom to secretly peer outside the window to see what’s happening, the grandfather comes in to use the toilet as Rafi is suspended in front of him. Get the picture? There’s a lot of such goings on in this oddball comedy that aspires to say something about human relations.
Leni’s sister Tania ((María Botto) is promiscuous (Gloria calls her a whore). Leni’s young brother David (Fernando Ramallo) has suddenly become ultra religious, unlike the rest of the family. Of course, Leni-Rafi relationship is severely threatened in the course of the escalating bizarre events packed into the screenplay, but can anyone doubt that all will work out eventually? “Only Human” offers some decent human fun, although you may not remember much of it for long. A Magnolia Pictures release.
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