How a person perceives the truth can matter more than reality. Writer/director Ronny Trocker mines the distance between a traumatic event and its lingering impact on a nuclear family in his new feature, Human Factors, making its World Premiere as part of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival’s World Dramatic Competition. The film follows a young, German couple and their two children during a retreat from the big city to an idyllic, seaside vacation home. Whatever sense of serenity they sought out is quickly broken after a mysterious home invasion that not only shakes the family, but shakes loose their underlying issues. 

Trocker’s film leans into the looming discomfort with an opening tracking shot that creeps from room to room just as parents Nina (Sabine Timoteo) and Jan (Mark Waschke) arrive. It’s a cozy, suburban bubble waiting to be popped. Aside from being married to one another, the pair co-own an advertising agency; however, a lucrative approach from a politically charged potential client has put them at odds with one another. She can only see compromised morals where he sees commercial-scale money. Conflicts over their company’s direction as well as the idea of political unrest hint at a much deeper world that exists just outside the margins of these character’s lives, though those parts largely feel under-explored. 

Instead, Human Factors picks at Nina and Jan’s marriage like a scab, revealing pain and resentments hidden behind a picturesque lifestyle. In a way, the film echoes the brilliant Force Majeure (not so successfully remade as the American comedy Downhill) in its dissection of a marriage via a seemingly innocent brush with danger. Yet, while Human Factors shares in its moral ambiguity, it lacks the sharpened knife’s edge that Ruben Östland’s film had in its exploration of masculine fragility. What Human Factors offers in its place is a story that twists itself into a satisfying puzzle by its end.

The film unfolds with a Rashomonic structure, revisiting the central break-in from the point of view of each family member, although that doesn’t become apparent until some way into the film. No shots repeat, and scenes are reconfigured around a new perspective with each re-telling adding a new, unexpected layer to the incident. Trocker weaves enough mystery into each section of his story to keep the viewer guessing, Like empty boxes on a checklist, Human Factors ties up loose ends with a satiating efficiency. The pleasure in watching things fall into place is a distraction from the film’s limited emotional arc.