In a "Landscape With Invisible Hand"

I feel like I've seen every variation of alien invasion movie, but "Landscape With Invisible Hand" finds some new wrinkles to explore.  Like the best science-fiction, its aliens are really a thinly disguised allegorical lens through which to examine current social problems.  The allegory is not subtle, and the execution is awkward at times, but I found myself fascinated with the film's scenarios the whole way through.  

So, welcome to Earth in 2036, where the alien Vuuv have conquered the world.  The Vuuv, who resemble pink rectangles of flesh with some skinny, brush-like appendages and eyestalks, managed to do this peacefully and efficiently.  They simply brought some new technology to Earth, replaced the top tier of capitalism, and massively widened the gap between the haves and the have-nots.  The Vuuv live with a few select humans in fabulous wealth on their floating islands, while the rest of humanity is stuck in a rapidly disintegrating society, literally below them.  Jobs are few, everyone is scraping by, and the Vuuv are gradually replacing things like schools and governments with systems designed to benefit themselves.   

The film focuses on the Campbell family, who try to deal with the realities of the occupation as best they can.  Mother Beth (Tiffany Haddish) is out of work, despite being highly educated.  Her teenage son Adam (Asante Blackk), is a promising artist, but feels directionless.  He connects with a classmate, Chloe (Kylie Rogers), and eventually arranges for her displaced family to live in the Campbells' basement.  This leads to friction almost immediately, but Adam and Chloe fall in love.  Their attempts to earn money and keep their families happy, however, keep backfiring.  First, Adam and Chloe try to livecast their relationship to a Vuuv audience.  Then, the Campbells allow a Vuuv to roleplay as their father figure.  Finally,  Adam's artistic talents are noticed by the Vuuv.

Written and directed by Cory Finley, and based on the novel by M. T. Anderson, "Landscape with an Invisible Hand" takes aim at social media figures, tech conglomerates, rich elites, and clueless capitalists by mirroring their behavior in the Vuuv invaders and colonizers.  The worldbuilding here is fascinating, showing how the Vuuv have wormed their way into every part of human life, and how so much of their power comes from human complacency.  We don't see much of the original meeting between Vuuvs and humans, but their day to day interactions speak volumes.  The average Vuuv is not stronger or smarter than the average human - they just have more power and money, so they feel entitled to behave like the superior species.   Conversely, you have Chloe's family - her traumatized father (Josh Hamilton) and contemptuous brother (Michael Gandolfini) - who are jealous and  hostile in spite of the Campbells' generosity, and desperate to curry favor with the Vuuv to put themselves higher up on the social ladder.  Their behavior contrasts with the Campbells, who are more willing to question the Vuuv and resist the measures designed to make humans subservient.  

"Landscape" sometimes feels like it's hopping between too many different targets and topics, at the expense of the characters.  The whole film could have been about the livecasting, and the way that the performative aspect of Adam and Chloe's relationship affects their behavior.  However, I like that the film aims for bigger targets and wants to explore more of this disturbing utopia.  The Vuuv are both repellant and fascinating, and extremely memorable.  They're so non-threatening in person, and yet so immediately off-putting, I couldn't stop staring at them whenever one appeared onscreen.  The Vuuv's tactics are both sinister and yet at the same time extremely familiar.  I think the movie works so well because the Vuuv dystopia is a barely exaggerated version of our own world, and the Vuuv are horrible in very human ways.  I love that the most ruinous thing they do to Adam is to threaten a lawsuit. 

Trying to compare this to other alien invasion movies is a challenge.  "They Live" is similar, but the subterfuge is totally unnecessary, of course.  The same goes for "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."  Why waste so much time coming up with these fiendish plots, when the mechanism for conquering humanity is right here, having been developed and put in practice by humans themselves?

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