One Percent More Humid

'One Percent More Humid' tells a good story about an affair between a young woman and a married man. Mainly carried by the excellent acting of male lead Alessandro Nivola. Not surprisingly the affair fails in the end. Apart from this, it's interwoven with a tragic car accident from the past. As often happens in Juno Temple-films, 'One Percent More Humid' just shows a segment of common people's lives. With a bittersweet underlining that, whatever happens, life must be lived until its very end.

I hesitated to watch it because of the bad rating but the trailer looked good and Juno Temple is in it which is no guarantee that is good but it is guaranteed that she will be good in it. And I was right her performance stands out even though Ozarks Julia Gardner is good as well and Alessandro Nivola is good at being himself as usual. The story is one worth telling. We see the both woman struggling dealing with the accident and so this is not a feel good movie. It is about pain and suffering but I find it to be believable and well told and it is also beautifully shot. Very emotional and feels authentic.

This movie just never really clicked for me. The basic plot is that two friends reconnect on summer break, six months after a horrific accident, and each finds unorthodox ways of dealing with their grief. There are so many bad decisions in the movie (and not just by the two leads) that the tone felt overwhelmingly overwrought - melodramatic, that is. And I have to admit I was a little put off by the casting of Juno Temple as the "innocent" one (when her character claims as such, I laughed - turned out she was serious and it wound up being an integral part of her decision making). The ladies are the entire story here, but given the gravity of the theme I'm not sure either Temple or Julia Garner were suited to their roles.