Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
39 Adventures of Power
66 Afterschool
73 Amreeka
49 Antichrist
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
71 Big Fan
65 Black Dynamite
76 Bliss
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
76 Broken Embraces
70 Bronson
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
60 Collapse
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
53 Dare
50 Defamation
67 Departures
70 Earth Days
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
88 Fantastic Mr. Fox
31 Fix
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
xx From Mexico with Love
28 Gentlemen Broncos
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Horse Boy, The
74 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
26 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
43 Little Traitor, The
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
46 Love Hurts
84 Maid, The
45 Mammoth
75 Messenger, The
55 Missing Person, The
59 More Than a Game
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
48 New York, I Love You
66 No Impact Man
26 Oh My God
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
79 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73 Red Cliff
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
65 Skin
41 Splinterheads
42 Staten Island
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
58 Storm
82 Sun, The
49 Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73 That Evening Sun
61 Trucker
49 Turning Green
83 U2 3D
45 Uncertainty
67 Visual Acoustics
32 War on Kids
67 Way We Get By, The
65 Wedding Song, The
xx White on Rice
59 William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74 Woman in Berlin, A
43 Women in Trouble
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Only Human

EMAILPRINTMagnolia Pictures

Only Human reviews
70
7.0 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 21 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 3 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Comedy  |  Foreign  |  Romance

Written by: Dominic Harari
Teresa Pelegri

Directed by: Dominic Harari
Teresa Pelegri

Release Date:
Theatrical: June 16, 2006
DVD: October 17, 2006

Running Time: 93 minutes, Color

Origin: Spain / Argentina / Portugal / UK

Language(s): Spanish / Hebrew / English / Arabic (with English subtitles)

Summary

RATING: R for some sexual content, nudity and language

Starring Norma Aleandro, Guillermo Toledo, María Botto, Marián Aguilera, Fernando Ramallo, Alba Molinero, Max Berliner, and Mario Martín

This gloriously irreverent family comedy fuses brilliant characterization and unrelenting humor to rework the age-old story of meeting the parents with a hilarious modern twist. (Magnolia Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

83

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Cheery, expertly constructed Spanish farce.

Read Full Review >
80

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

As directors, Harari and De Pelegri have just the right light-fingered glissando touch. Not a moment sags. Their cast relishes and fulfills the tempo.

Read Full Review >
80

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Winningly human, and wonderfully funny.

75

Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves

The film's snappy action and frank sexuality are reminiscent of "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," while the mordant humor and conflicting identities are vintage Allen.

Read Full Review >
75

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

There's a manic quality to the film that may wear you down. But at least you won't be bored.

Read Full Review >
75

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

A dinner-from-hell comedy about a pretty Jewish Spaniard who brings a nice Palestinian guy home to her outspoken Madrid family.

Read Full Review >
75

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

There's nothing subtle about Pelegri and Harari's culture-clash romp, but it's sometimes frantically funny; that it's thoroughly forgettable is an issue only if you expect it to do more than poke easy fun at the thorny issues it raises.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Moves along briskly, with several laugh-out-loud moments.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

The slapstick gets a little too silly, and a rushed ending feels unsatisfying. But everyone whose family boasts an excess of opinions will relate.

Read Full Review >
70

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

A movie that is never elegant but is often hysterically funny, and maintains a rabbit-on-speed pace that Hollywood comedy long ago abandoned.

Read Full Review >
70

Village Voice Jim Ridley

Intermittently hilarious.

Read Full Review >
70

The New York Times Laura Kern

A vigorously paced modern screwball comedy written and directed by the husband-and-wife team Dominic Harari and Teresa De Pelegrí, explores family values, and Leni and Rafi's mismatched cultural backgrounds, with a refreshingly light touch.

Read Full Review >
70

LA Weekly Jim Ridley

A Spanish dinner-theater comedy, this intermittently hilarious contraption by the husband-wife team of Dominic Harari and Teresa de Pelegri heaves Jewish-Palestinian conflict onto a prop-room table already groaning with loaded guns, impromptu sex toys, a wounded duck paddling in a bidet, and a brick of frozen soup that doubles as a sandbag for unlucky pedestrians below.

Read Full Review >
70

Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen

Mines the comic possibilities of the classic setup of introducing the fiancé to the family, with results that are playful, charming and surprisingly thoughtful.

Read Full Review >
70

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Only Human, a Spanish farce, has absolutely no business being as laugh-out-loud funny as it often is.

Read Full Review >
67

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Despite a strong start, Only Human loses its grip on all that merry energy and comes to feel more like a sitcom than like "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" or "Some Like It Hot," to name just some of its forebears.

Read Full Review >
67

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Don't expect a meaningful resolution, just a bouncy comedy with some hilarious moments in the stray ricochets.

Read Full Review >
63

Miami Herald Marta Barber

Unfortunately, the film is also at times dull, though the scale definitely tilts toward enjoyment. Quality balance aside, who doesn't want to enjoy a few hearty laughs? Only Human provides a few of those.

Read Full Review >
60

Chicago Reader Joshua Katzman

Toledo is very funny, and there are some hilarious comic bits, but writer-directors Dominic Harari and Teresa Pelegri drag in several distracting subplots, turning this 2004 Spanish comedy into a scattershot affair.

Read Full Review >
58

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

For a film that pads out such broad slapstick with toilet humor, obnoxious-child antics, and even cute-animal business, Only Human is surprisingly enjoyable, thanks to the filmmakers' relatively low-key, Pedro Almodóvar-style approach.

Read Full Review >
50

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

Attempts to achieve a Pedro Almodovar-level of humor without much success... Degenerating into witless slapstick.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

James R. gave it a9:
Amusing, sometimes silly, the movie has a sweet heart. One of the best comedies I have seen this year.

Chad S. gave it a5:
The Israeli/Palestinian couple in "Only Human" reminds me of Hannity(prom king) and Colmes(band geek). Leni(Marian Aguilera) is much better looking than her fiance, Rafi(Guillermo Toledo), which makes the film seem predisposed towards the Israelis(like how the FOX show is slanted towards the conservative side). Without meaning to, the filmmakers reveal their bias. An early scene, in which Rafi accidentally "kills" the patriarch, is going to be less funny if you think the filmmakers aren't apolitical. In a discussion about past fiances(presumably all Israelis), Tania(Maria Botto) tells Leni that she thinks Rafi is ugly. And Leni agrees. Aside from the film's political minefield, "Only Human" also suffers from editing incoherence. All of a sudden, the father is up on his feet; and we're not sure if he picked himself off from the street, or escaped from a hospital.

Mase gave it a7:
Darker spanish version of Meet the Parents. Wittier but without the bellylaughs. Only truely funny in whisps, the slapstick scenes fall shorter than it's american cousin. However there are some great characters here. I could watch actress Norma ALeandro as mama GLoria all day. She could teach STreisand a thing or two.

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use