Only Human (2004, Spanish, Seres queridos) attempts to imitate a Rabelaisian plot: wacky, and clever, but this film most often falls flat. This Spanish film is in the mold of Meet the Parents but without the laughs. The improbable plot lines should sustain interest but frankly, I fell asleep. I tried again the next day and slogged through it. The universal appeal of bringing home that special someone is undercut by its own cleverness. We should enjoy our protagonists' Leni's family buffoons: blind Dadu, the grandfather, the unwed nymphomaniac sister living at home with a 5-year-old daughter, the zealous brother with his fanatical attachment to Judaism, the pre-menopausal crisis of the mother, and the wayward father. When Leni brings her Palestinian fiancé, Rafi, to meet the family, we are set up for conflict galore but global issues pale in comparison with the chaos that reigns in Leni's family. It begins promisingly enough; unwittingly, Rafi may have accidentally killed Leni's father, but the anarchy that ensues teases but never delivers.
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