Only Human

In this frantic cross-cultural screwball comedy from Spain, every available second is crammed with shouting, dashing about, misunderstanding and eccentricity. Think early Almodovar necking amphetamines with Kusturica and you’re on the right track.
Written and directed with neurotic flair by husband and wife team, Dominic Harari and Teresa De Pelegri, Only Human sees Jewish Madridista Leni (Aleandro) bring her Palestinian fiance Rafi (Toledo) to meet her parents, belly dancing sister, orthodox brother and a barking mad grandfather given to boasts about the number of Arabs he has shot. Though the ensuing madness is set almost entirely in a seventh floor apartment, this maniacal farce somehow contrives to work in possible accidental slayings, shootings, happy hookers, sexual frictions and a runaway duckling to the occasional strains of Hava Nagila.
For all the (occasionally tiring) zaniness, Only Human delivers a couple of sweet political barbs, including a brilliant escalating row about Israel’s illegal occupation which concludes, not unreasonably, with the idea that the entire contested zone ought to be handed back to the extinct Canaanites.
Well, they were there first.

Running Time 93mins. Cert 15a. Opens June 3rd.