There is a profound effect on the viewer after witnessing a lot of nothing but still a whole lot of something. At first you may believe you are not being shown enough to remain entertained, but perhaps that is the filmmaker’s intent. Celebrated for his writing and directing, Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit returns with a steady and philosophical urban drama. Just like the study of philosophy itself, Human Resource is a look into the idea of reality and existence itself told through the perspective of a young and quiet female HR manager.
In reality, women tend to be pushed to the side. Sometimes they can be thought of as those typical tropes (like the mother, cleaner, stay at home housewife) where they are not given a chance to shine. For Thamrongrattanarit to choose a female as the focal character of his film truly proves how much thought he put into designing this world. Not just the idea of the female, but how she continuously listens and observes as the world continues around her.
Living with her partner, young Fren (Prapamonton Eiamchan) works in HR at a difficult company. She is left on the sidelines, and it appears as though they only need her when it is convenient for the company. Part of Fren’s job is helping with the hiring of young prospects and participating in the company’s wellness programs. Soon she finds out she is pregnant and from that moment forward her life changes. Instead of living in the moment, her entire world now revolves around this unborn child. Her thoughts begin spinning and drifting down a darker road questioning existence, the future, morality and what true happiness is.
“We never asked them if they wanted to come” and nobody is ever genuinely given the choice; life just is given to us.
Thamrongrattanarit keeps his audiences following along at a slow pace. Just as Fren is discovering new things so is the viewer. We are kept at arm’s reach, not allowed to learn much about her personally but we see what she experiences in the moment physically. Through gorgeous camera angles, and focal choices (that would not be how one sees in real life) different feelings are evoked into the individual. The world is set up feeling perfectly uniform; each shot is so straight that it is gorgeous to the eye and yet somehow you are made to feel as if something is being hidden. Silence is felt with how Human Resource is presented on screen and the focus on specific characters with a fading of the others and the background adds a sense of eeriness as it feels unnatural.
Only so much can be conveyed through what is seen on screen. Yet in Human Resource, there is even less said than normal. Fren is there and she barely speaks; it is all in the facial emotions where we as the audience are left to infer what she is thinking or how these new experiences are affecting her. Fren may be the focal point of Thamrongrattanarit’s philosophical study in Human Resource; however, she remains the most reserved out of the entire cast of characters. Eiamchan takes her role as Fren seriously in that without her, audiences might have been given too much or not enough. She is a private woman, so little is given to the audience purposefully.
Human Resource is a film that thinks outside the box compared to your typical cinematic experience. Instead of learning about Fren’s experiences through herself, it is the world around her and what she sees and hears that help us infer her internal thoughts. Everything happening all over is relevant now that she is pregnant, and everything makes her question the way of the world. Just as Fren confronts this idea of mortality, the audience is thrown into the same situation. It becomes a film not about learning about a character, but a film forcing us to think.
Chilling to contemplate, but no matter what moment in the film is occurring, the rate in which the viewer becomes more uncomfortable, or even more worrisome, increases as time moves forward. The audience is asked to watch as Fren becomes increasingly isolated, and the world feels as if it is closing in around her. Though Thamrongrattanarit might have a specific idea of how to interpret what is happening in Human Resource, there is the sense that he also wants the audience to understand at their own pace as well.
For a film part of the “Love” Programme at the 2025 BFI London Film Festival, it does seemingly fit well within the confines of it. After premiering in Venice amidst the Horizons section, it had its UK premiere on Wednesday October 8, 2025.
