'Landscape With Invisible Hand' review: Alien invasion with a soft sci-fi edge stuns out of Sundance

Asante Blackk and Kylie Rogers prima successful "Landscape With Invisible Hand." Credit: MGM

Forget the alien penetration of sneaky infiltration oregon bombastic bombings of nationalist landmarks. Landscape With Invisible Hand unfurls a subject fabrication communicative that plays retired much similar an unnerving yet amusing extraterrestrial gentrification.

Imagine a not-so-distant aboriginal successful which alien overlords person descended. But alternatively than conquering oregon catering to politicians, they bought retired humanity by teaming up with corporations, promising caller tech and caller heights of status. Specifically: picturesque utopias that hover implicit Earth's aboveground and dainty everything beneath similar a dump site. The dumped-upon satellite beneath is wherever Landscape With Invisible Hand paints a coming-of-age communicative that is uniquely entrancing and thrillingly unpredictable.

What's Landscape With Invisible Hand about? 

Adapted by M.T. Anderson's novel of the aforesaid name,(Opens successful a caller window) Landscape With Invisible Hand centers connected Adam Campbell (Asante Blackk), a Black American teen scraping by connected an Earth present tally by an alien contention known arsenic Vuvv. While those surviving successful a virtually elevated mentation of gated communities relish innovations and wealth, those beneath — like the Campbell household — are scraping by arsenic millions of jobs are made obsolete by Vuvv technology. Adam and his lawyer ma (Tiffany Haddish) scavenge for immoderate enactment they tin find, portion his small sister tries increasing her ain food, sick of the nutrient-rich but unappetizing cubes that person go modular for lower-class households. But their lives alteration everlastingly erstwhile Adam falls successful love.  

Within hours of being beguiled by caller kid successful schoolhouse Chloe Marsh (Kylie Rogers), Adam has suggested she and her unhoused household determination into his basement. Tensions emergence betwixt 2 households crowded underneath the aforesaid roof. But there's a reprieve erstwhile Chloe and Adam determine to crook their budding romance into a unrecorded watercourse for the aliens' entertainment. These "courtship broadcasts" springiness the Vuvv — who nutrient asexually and person nary conception of romanticist relationships — a vicarious thrill. For the Marsh and Campbell families, this means large bucks, fiscal security, and real food. But however tin young emotion withstand not lone the prying eyes of alien gawkers but besides the unit to enactment their families done a futuristically intrusive marque of world TV? 

Landscape With Invisible Hand elegantly tells a analyzable sci-fi story. 

Writer/director Corey Finley, who won praise for the teen thriller Thoroughbreds, mindfully sprinkles details astir this character-centered drama. For instance, alternatively than an assertive quality montage astir the alien invasion, the advancement of it is depicted implicit the opening credits done artwork by Adam. A crayon drafting here, a pencil sketch there; each details Earth earlier and past aft the Vuvv appeared. Throughout the film, delicate section breaks are created by close-ups of his work. Each drafting not lone pulls absorption to a infinitesimal that was profound for our protagonist, but besides elegantly explores his emerging knowing of this satellite and his relation successful it. While Adam whitethorn conflict to pass however helium feels successful words, his drawings talk volumes. 

As for the Vuvv, an acquisition video astatine schoolhouse plays to explicate to us and the students who they are and mostly what their woody is. However, it's swiftly revealed to beryllium cheerful propaganda that ruthlessly ignores the wide poorness and despair their planetary buyout has caused.

Pockets of this interaction popular up successful casual conversations astir 3D-printed meat, a tract of debris that includes discarded lacrosse sticks, and the motion that a publically performed termination elicits. The 2nd enactment volition showcase sci-fi spectacles similar spaceships, glossy tech, and adjacent the mysterious Vuvv, who are accurately described arsenic looking similar "gooey java tables." To Finley's credit, the humble fund of his movie doesn't detract from the tangibility of these out-of-this-world elements. However, this is firmly brushed sci-fi. So the aliens and their tech — while intriguing — are not the point. This is each astir Adam. 

Asante Blackk stands beardown arsenic a starring man.

With this bustling backdrop of alien invasion, quality tragedy, exploitation, archetypal loves, creator inspiration, and families successful conflict, Landscape With Invisible Hand is unapologetically astir a young Black antheral uncovering himself successful a satellite littered with adversity. Whether astatine location oregon astatine school, with his girlfriend, his family, oregon a Vuvv who is playing tourist, Adam is repeatedly challenged to find his ain values and worth. Will helium beryllium similar the neurosurgeon who near their vocation down to go a Vuvv chauffeur? Will helium hazard being ostracized by rebelling against the Vuvv's demands for feel-good entertainment? What does it mean to thrive versus past successful a satellite wherever the haves dainty the have-nots arsenic novelty? 

Blackk, who's antecedently appeared successful specified heralded shows arsenic This Is Us and When They See Us, shoulders the value of these worries with a coagulated stance and agleam eyes. Even erstwhile Adam is astatine a nonaccomplishment for words, Blackk's regard cries retired astir the pressure, the pain, and adjacent the joyousness that collides successful Adam's journey. Rogers matches him arsenic Chloe, a bubbly ingenue erstwhile the Vuvv are watching who slides into a strained stance of angst erstwhile they're not — erstwhile she tin beryllium real, and truly worried. Haddish brings immoderate smirking wit arsenic a no-nonsense mom, portion Josh Hamilton — as Chloe's hopeless dada — gamely plays the fool arsenic demanded (by the movie and the Vuvv). Altogether, the ensemble formed crafts a satellite that feels eerily familiar, adjacent with the slimy extraterrestrials popping up to origin headaches and societal shudderings. 

The intriguing sci-fi details that Finley drops similar breadcrumbs pb america into the funny escapade successful Landscape With Invisible Hand. The performances crushed the heartache that thrums astatine its core, portion theremin euphony trembles successful its score, giving a consciousness of vulnerability and alien audio. But possibly what's astir exhilarating astir Finley's latest is that — unless you've work the publication — there's nary mode to foretell what mightiness travel adjacent oregon wherever Adam mightiness go. The aboriginal whitethorn look bleak, but its specifics consciousness wildly — enthrallingly — uncertain.

So, we look to the drawings dropped on the mode to get a consciousness of what is to come. Wisely, Finley doesn't permission america with casual answers. He does, however, permission america with a brushed sci-fi gem that is fantastic, fun, and thrillingly fucked up. 

Landscape With Invisible Hand was reviewed retired of its satellite premiere astatine Sundance 2023. 

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