Slamdance 2018: ‘Human Affairs’
By Peter Belsito
Slamdance also has its wonderful surprises and this film was one!
This drama follows Geneviève, a surrogate pregnant mom to be who must reckon with her ambivalence about the pregnancy and her precarious feelings for the parents-to-be.
Human Affairs is nominally about the effect of an impending surrogate birth on the childless couple involved, but its title points to its far more panoramic scope.
Sidney (Dominic Fumusa), a playwright, and Lucinda (Kerry Condon), a theater actress, are a married couple who have been having trouble conceiving a child on their own.
To achieve this, they employ a surrogate, Genevieve (Julie Sokolowski), originally from France but now living in Vermont. Genevieve is invited to live with the couple in New York for a weekend as she begins the fourth month of her pregnancy.
The drama plays out internally to Genevieve as she harbors grave doubts and questions about what she’s doing and why and can’t seem to communicate with the couple, the parents to be.
It’s a busy and stressful time for these soon to be parents, Sidney and Lucinda, as they’re both involved with rehearsals for Sidney’s soon-to-open play, which Lucinda is starring in.
Unbeknownst to Lucinda, Sidney has been in regular communication with Genevieve throughout her surrogacy, which appears to have begun as a friendly correspondence, but has crossed the line into one of a much more romantic and even potentially sexual nature.
Sidney and Genevieve sneak around behind Lucinda’s back for encounters that become increasingly furtive and fraught and sexually dangerous.
Genevieve grows more frustrated, indeed unhinged, over Sidney’s vacillation and reluctance to come clean to his wife about all this.
Sidney, for his part, struggles to come to terms with his conflicted feelings, and to find a way to extricate himself from the mess he’s created. It all inevitably sets the stage for a climactic conflict among all the members of this emotional triangle.
The climax does indeed come — but in a satisfying and most unexpected way.
The two women become not only friends but their deep relationship becomes central to the film’s dramatic core.
In particular, in the film’s third act, the actress-wife steps forward dramatically, unexpectedly and confronts and indeed befriends the pregnant Genevieve. Their relationship then anchors the dramatic core of the film.
You must see this for yourself to experience the beautiful and clever final minutes of the film. I won’t describe but it dramatically gives great gifts to the viewer z9and characters!!) and must be seen and I won’t describe. Beautifully original!!!
Afterwards, I had a delightful chat there with Director Charlie Birns.
What can I say??
I told him how much I liked his work and especially the women’s relationship.
Smart guy, of course he agreed with me!!!
