Human Resource Review: This Slow-Burn Thai Indie About Having Kids Will Strike A Chord In Singapore

Human Resource  (R21)

Starring Prapamonton Eiamchan, Paopetch Charoensook, Pimmada Chaisaksoen, Chanakan Rattana-udom

Directed by Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit

A pregnant Thai woman wonders if she should give birth.

Actually, nothing much happens in this movie.

Not in the usual dramatic, action-based or horror sense. The opening shot — an ultrasound photo of a foetus — stays frozen for so long I thought the projector got stuck.

Things seem normal here. Outwardly, that is. Inwardly, it’s another story.

This flick, written and directed by Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit about our reproductive future under threat by relentless bad news and pressure, looks like a fictional real-life documentary exposing economic, social and personal disillusionment.

It’s billed as “A drama that explores contemporary human life amid a global decline in birth rates”. Shown via the distant face and hidden worries of an introspective woman caught in unsmiling, un-sunny Bangkok’s rat race.

We’re talking Singapore-level TFR matters. She’s contemplating abortion.

Fren (Prapamonton Eiamchan), is dragged along the conveyor belt of modern living wondering about the bleak existentialism of adding her baby to a world she’s unsure of. From meeting room to breakfast table to inside her car, she ruminates about the life forming within her body.

The doctor says reduce stress. Yeah, right.

You’d be surprised to find such a slow-moving, indie-style, world-cinema pic circa these commercial times. If this joyless, meditative film, with realistic experiences, soul-sucking situations and virtually zero soundtrack, isn’t your thing, you’ll be bored out of your skull.

Me? I got absorbed by its counter-programming freshness. And I came out relating more to Fren than, say, Iron Man's friend. Her fears and uncertainties as she navigates choices in a work-slave office environment tell us that on a daily basis in our brutal urbanity, we’re just like her.

No need to be preggers to enjoy this Human Resource. Just human. With its “human resource” being two-pronged.

Fren is a HR exec interviewing candidates to replace a missing assistant to a mean-bastard boss who flings stuff at his staff. She knows what the applicants are in for since the AWOL employee ends up in a bad way.

But she fulfils her thankless job. Despite feeling sorry for a naive newbie, Jida (Pimmada Chaisaksoen from Thai-pop girl group, PiXXiE), who becomes the new sacrificial lamb while others, greedy for perks, escape her unlucky fate.

There’s no Age Of Innocence in jaded days.

Meanwhile, Fren, internally and emotionally, is also one month pregnant in a country allowing abortions only within three months. With time running out, should she contribute “human resource” herself when she sees how cog-in-the-machine harsh, existence can be?

“We want them, so they come. Not because they want to,” she ponders, observing cheerful school kids destined to grow up disappointed.

Her husband, Thame (Paopetch Charoensook), works hard to sell a stab-proof safety vest to the police to pay for their incoming child's costly education to ensure a problem-free future life.

But that vest is really a protective metaphor for the unhappy news — floods, microplastics, bad economy, encroaching AI, a stabbing case involving an abortion — bombarding Fren through the airwaves.

Even worse, the couple keeps bumping into a violent motorbike road bully looking like the devil incarnate of her escalating anxieties.

At which point, you ask how is the Land Of Smiles so gloomy and how can director Thamrongrattanarit be the same guy who made the goofy cup-stacking-competition comedy, Fast & Feel Love, in 2022?

This dude needs to go to Disneyland to chill.

Outwardly, he should’ve a real blast there. Inwardly, he can plot his next great killjoy-er.

As he shows astutely here in Human Resource, it’s always the inside that matters.

Singapore’s birth planners, please take note. (3.5/5 stars) now in cinemas

Photo: GV Pictures