Human Resource Review: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Number

In the refreshingly bleak Human Resource, Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit holds up a mirror to our capitalist society and shows us that this world isn’t meant for good people.

“Try to stay cheerful,” the doctor instructs her, “They’re listening on the inside, like a submarine.” But the protagonist of Human Resource isn’t a cheerful person, and soon, we find out why.

“A dangerous new disease is coming, and it can’t be stopped,” the radio announces when Fren gets in the car. “There are microplastics in apples,” her husband Thame (Paopetch Charoensook) tells her, later that night, but that story won’t be enough for his boss; he needs to find something better to report on. A teacher stabbed a student with a food tray, though, and that will do, especially since the murderer is a woman. The following day, Fren, who works in HR, attends a lecture where a salesman is cheerfully advertising an “ultra slim stab vest” that will enable workers to be knifed multiple times without getting hurt.

When she returns to her desk, Fren and her colleague Tenn (Chanakan Rattana-Udom) realize one of their new employees, June (Supawan Poolcharoen), is missing, and they’ll need to hire someone else, but it’s proving harder than they thought. Talented people want money, incentives, and days off. They want to work from home, only on weekdays, and they will prioritize their families and health over their job. But young people are less needy, and don’t really ask for much: they don’t mind being exploited, overworked, and even abused. They are the people who’ll gladly give up their basic human rights for no money, to earn their place in the corporate machine.

This is the kind of world in which Fren is supposed to raise her child, but does she even want to? She’ll have to make a decision soon, as abortion is only legal in Thailand within the first three months of pregnancy. Right now, she doesn’t know, and how can we blame her? In his first film since 2022’s Fast & Feel Love, writer-director Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit shows us a society whose only survivors are the angriest and most entitled people. These are the people who think they’re invincible, and whose lack of empathy matches nonsensical ideals that should be incompatible with any kind of society. And yet, the world we see in Human Resource is entirely believable, because we live in it too.

“It’s been almost two years now,” a frustrated Thame tells Fren one night, right after they’ve had their usual robotic, routine sex. “Doesn’t our baby want to meet us?,” he asks. Fren is already pregnant, but Thame doesn’t know, which gives our protagonist some momentary freedom to decide what to do. Until something happens, and suddenly, that choice isn’t hers to make anymore.

Human Resource is a bleak film, and rightfully so. But it’s not an entirely depressing watch. DOP Natdanai Naksuwarn (One For The Road) imbues the movie with the kind of atmosphere that envelops you, making you a character in it. Together, writing (Thamrongrattanarit), cinematography, and score (Siwat Homkham) make the film’s characters and locations become familiar the moment you first see them, from Fren, Thame and Fren’s colleagues to the couple’s home, car, and the places they go to, which soon become your own too.

It’s the kind of effortless storytelling you can’t help but being intrigued by, with a western-like feel that draws you in, enough dark humor to lift you up when you need it the most, and a fantastic central performance from Prapamonton Eiamchan that makes us care, empathise, and even suffer along with her character.

“When we were looking around, I thought about how much it takes to become a decent person,” Fren tells Thame toward the end of the film, when husband and wife are looking at potential schools. She then proceeds to list a series of qualities that would make someone “an ok person”. They’d need to be knowledgeable, patient, strong; healthy; employed, with savings; selfless. Someone who wouldn’t hurt the people they love. These are all basic qualities that should be taken for granted, yet Fren and Thame’s world in Human Resource is very different from that, and so is our own.

What is the point of learning new skills? Why do we even bother teaching children values? And why should we learn how to overcome failure and toughen up for the work environment, and how to be nice to the people around us, when that very same society is just waiting for us to be old enough so we can be stripped of all our humanity? Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit asks these questions and more in a film that tackles capitalism, women’s rights, human’s rights, and, ultimately, the meaning of life. There are no definitive answers, nor should there be, but Thamrongrattanarit’s message is clear: this world isn’t meant for good people.

Human Resource will be screened at the BFI London Film Festival on October 8-10, 2025. The film will be released in Thailand on January 29, 2026.