Review of Human Capital (2020) by Keithdow — 23 Mar 2020

Marc Meyers’ ‘Human Capital’ is a resourceful melodrama that adequately relies on one of the better ensemble casts assembled so far this year, though it largely lacks the compelling nature and overall substance that was seen in Paolo Virzi’s 2013 version of the film based on the same source material.

Liev Schreiber plays Drew, a Brooklyn real estate agent who crosses paths with Quint Manning (Peter Sarsgaard), a hedge fund manager who offers a financial investment that one should suspect as being too good to be true. As Drew hustles for enough money to buy into the scheme and the resulting payoff doesn’t go as planned, the rest of the picture’s high caliber cast is drawn into the mix, including compelling turns by Betty Gabriel, Marisa Tomei, and Paul Sparks.

Each actor is so perfectly cast and each character is so precisely defined that one only wishes that the plot itself were more compelling, with higher stakes and more grounded interactions. Given that this film is adapted from the novel by author Stephen Amidon yet heavily influenced by the Italian version of the movie of the same name, the everywhere-and-nowhere tone seemingly stems from hewing to two different masters but inadequately paying tribute to either.

Such is the dichotomy of ‘Human Capital’: a pleasure to watch such skilled actors make the most of the roles they are given while being frustrated at the nagging lack of any real payoff.