In ‘Landscape with Invisible Hand,’ the Alien and Human Cultures Clash and Collaborate

August 16, 2023

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Which hand is invisible? (CREDIT: Lynsey Weatherspoon/ Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures)

Starring: Asante Blackk, Kylie Rogers, Tiffany Haddish, Josh Hamilton, Brooklyn MacKinzie, Michael Gandolfini, William Jackson Harper

Director: Cordy Finley

Running Time: 105 Minutes

Rating: R for Some Harsh Language Apparently (This Should Absolutely Be PG-13)

Release Date: August 18, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: The extraterrestrials have arrived! And they’ve completely transformed society. The aliens of Landscape with Invisible Hand are crustacean-esque creatures known as the Vuvv who like to claim that they’ve instituted a sort of utopia. But really, it’s just their own version of exploitative capitalism. A few humans make out like gangbusters by ingratiating themselves into Vuvv culture, while the majority of Earth’s population struggle to deal. both financially and ethically. Among the hustlers are teenage visual artist Adam Campbell (Asante Blackk), his mom Beth (Tiffany Haddish), and sister Natalie (Brooklyn MacKinzie). At least they still have a roof over their head, which is more than can be said for his classmate Chloe (Kylie Rogers). Sparks immediately fly between the two of them, and he fancies himself a Good Samaritan, so he invites her and her dad (Josh Hamilton) and brother (Michael Gandolfini) to stay at his house until they can find something steady. But this arrangement soon turns awkward, and it only gets weirder once the Vuvv become closely involved.

What Made an Impression?: Getting On to Get On: Landscape with Invisible Hand is a bit of a postmodern alien visitation flick, insofar as the Vuvv are students of Earth culture. They’re mostly fans of classic domestic sitcoms, since they reproduce asexually and concepts like romantic and familial love are generally foreign to them. But you also get the sense that they’re familiar with conquering cinematic ETs and that they’re making a concerted effort to present themselves as a benevolent alternative. But we’ve already heard this story before in Earth history: it’s called colonization.
Even if you recognize the holes in the Vuvv’s telling, this is the new status quo, and there’s only the merest hints of revolution. So in the meantime, pretty much everyone is forced to confront how much of their integrity they’re willing to compromise to get by. And so, we meet a neurosurgeon who gives up his practice for the much more menial and wholly unnecessary – but also much more lucrative – job of Vuvv driver. Plenty of others are forced to sell their own intimacy. Adam and Chloe hit upon a quick moneymaking scheme by broadcasting their budding relationship to the Vuvv, who are fascinated by the rituals of human courtship. And one Vuvv even “marries” Beth so that he can experience what it’s like to be a human father. If this sounds like modern social media and reality TV stardom, you’re not too far off.
You’ll Know ‘Em When You Hear ‘Em: LwIH harkens back to classic mid-century sci-fi with its theremin-heavy score from Michael Abels. It suggests a woozy promise of the future that rings profoundly false. Sure, there are spaceships hanging up in the sky, but most people are stuck on the ground eating faux-meat blocks. That care to the aural design extends to the idiosyncratic sound effects. The Vuvv’s language is communicated by rubbing their fin-like appendages to create an alphabet that resembles scratching sandpaper and scraping pencils. It presents a mundane, but also unforgettable, reshaping of how to perceive the universe.
The Colors Endure: And finally, I would be remiss not to mention the element that lends this movie its title, as we’re treated to a series of shots of Adam’s artwork over the years. He’s been painting and drawing ever since he was a toddler, resulting in a signature, often watercolor-based expressive style. Eventually, his most ambitious project to date captures the attention of a prominent Vuvv art critic, who offers Adam a lucrative position as a human artist-in-residence. There’s a lot thematically in play in Landscape with Invisible Hand, and it handles this conflict of creativity vs. commerce as deftly as everything else.

Landscape with Invisible Hand is Recommended If You Like: Classic sci-fi, Modern social media, YA novels

Grade: 4 out of 5 Vuvvs

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Thoroughbreds’ is a Psychopathic Murder Scheme with Primary Color Flourishes

March 6, 2018

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , Leave a comment

CREDIT: Claire Folger/Focus Features

This review was originally posted on News Cult in March 2018.

Starring: Olivia Cooke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Anton Yelchin, Paul Sparks, Francie Swift

Director: Cory Finley

Running Time: 90 Minutes

Rating: R for a Psychopathic, Clinical Approach to Blood and a Little Bit of Language and Upper Middle Class Drug Use

Release Date: March 9, 2018 (Limited)

As as I became acquainted with the premise of Thoroughbreds – Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Amanda (Olivia Cooke) team up to kill the former’s stepfather (Paul Sparks) – I of course had to ask: what is it that drives Lily all the way to murder? But alas, that is not really a question this film cares to answer. It is not exactly ignored, but you would expect a grave decision like this to be given more consideration than Lily gives it. If he were abusing her in some way, you could understand why she would go to such an extreme. But the conflict basically boils down to: he wants her to stop freeloading and she thinks he’s a jerk. It is totally understandable why they have such a chilly relationship, but it hardly justifies murder.

It should be noted, though, that that shallow decision-making and outsize retribution is kind of the point. This is a bloody satire in the vein of Heathers. But the whole affair is so underplayed that you never feel the over-the-top nature of the premise. There is a matter-of-fact presentation that makes it hard to peg what writer/director Cory Finley wants us to conclude about Lily and Amanda’s motives and machinations. Since one or both of them is in essentially every scene, we are immersed in their perspective to the point that what they are scheming seems like so much less of a big deal than it obviously is.

Thoroughbreds works best as a showcase for its two leads. Amanda is some sort of sociopathic or psychopathic, unable to intuit the meanings of facial expressions, but practiced at faking emotions. Cooke nails a combination of off-putting but somehow friendly. Lily is the apparently more “normal” of the two, but that description really only fits insofar as how she is more adept at displaying and interpreting typically genuine emotions. She is prone to moral slipperiness that reads as inherent to her nature. The title basically refers to how these two have been groomed by nature to be the perfect criminals. Anton Yelchin (in one of his last roles) shows up as a drug dealer to privileged kids who Lily and Amanda hire to help them carry out the deed. He puts his own spin on the “you’re all blind sheep” shtick, but mostly he just serves a plot convenience.

These off-kilter individuals get their very appropriate soundtrack in the form of Erik Friedlander’s weird percussive score. It is so lacking in melody or any aspect of musical structure that I wonder if what I’m recognizing is actually just part of the sound mixing. Either way, it is an appropriate fit. It is a cold and clinical soundscape that is fit for me to love, while that same approach with the narrative has more modest results.

Thoroughbreds is Recommended If You Like: Heathers, The Loved Ones, American Psycho, Avant-garde percussive scores

Grade: 3 out of 5 Practice Smiles