CIFF: “Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out” - Film Review
One of the fundamental misunderstandings about criticism is that there is only one purpose of film: to be art. It’s why people don’t always trust critics. There’s often an assumption that they want to be contrarian for the sake of it and they can’t ever have fun. Admittedly, some critics are like that. Many people working in the field of criticism believe that if a film isn’t valuable to them, it isn’t valuable to anyone. What a narrow-minded means of looking at the world – to put yourself at the center of the universe and unequivocally proclaim that a movie is bad because you don’t like it. It’s negligent and antithetical to the future of film. Not every movie made for children has to have a deeply emotional undercurrent for adults. Some movies must exist solely for children and teens. They have to! How else will the next generations of film critics and filmmakers come to exist? A film lover doesn’t wake up one day when they’re five and turn on Rashomon. It’s a process. Something must be sparked within them.
Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Kinda Feel Left Out is made for families with tweens. It’s simple, sweet, and fun. As an almost-thirty-year-old with no children, this is not my kind of film. It got a few chuckles out of me, but nothing like the eruptions of laughter from the (mostly) younger audience around me. To critique this film based on my interests would be a waste of time. The filmmakers weren’t trying to make it fit with my usual favorite style of movie: sad, queer, slow-moving reflection on the human condition. The creators approached this like a Disney Channel Original Movie, and that’s not meant as a slight. I grew up on those movies. You can draw a path from DCOMs to Portrait of a Lady on Fire in my journey of loving movies. I wouldn’t be watching 11 movies in 2.5 days at a film festival and trying to make a career out of film criticism if it hadn’t been for those DCOMs. That’s a truth no one wants to talk about once they’ve seen movies that are considered Cinema™️.
This film centers on Calvin (Jacob Buster), who is certain that aliens abducted his parents one fateful night years ago. Since then, he has dedicated himself to studying science and space so he can find them. Everyone writes him off as a weirdo. Enter Itsy (Emma Tremblay). Her family has left the city to move to the middle of nowhere. She’s immediately drawn to Calvin’s kindness. Another student (Landry Townsend) sees Itsy’s burgeoning friendship with Calvin as her ticket out. She preys on Itsy’s desire to go to New York and pushes her to get close to Calvin so they can jointly enter a writing competition hosted by NYU. Itsy agrees, but finds herself feeling wrong about the situation once she really gets to know Calvin.
The central mystery is whether Calvin’s parents were actually abducted by aliens. The inherent skeptic in all of us is inclined to think this is just his means of coping, but the dreamer in us also makes us say “what if?” That’s how hope continues to live. It’s in the what-if of life. As the film goes on, it’s less about whether Calvin will ever find his parents and more about him learning to be present. The same goes for Itsy. She’s so ready to leave her family in the dust that she doesn’t take the time to notice what’s around her. It’s a theme that pops up fairly often in films made for tweens, who are approaching the moment when the angst of teenagedom rears its ugly head. It’s important, and a lesson we can all stand to learn. Calvin says he’s spent so much time thinking about leaving that he’s never considered what it would mean to stay. Haven’t we all? Is that not emotionally resonant for those painful years?
Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out is the sort of sweet, charming, family flick that will warm the hearts of those who stumble upon it. For those who want a thought-provoking cerebral experience, this isn’t it, but it never wanted to be that in the first place.
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