Low budget and/or independent filmmaking is certainly an experience not for everyone.
Generally speaking, the best indies are capable of making the best of what resources they have available, using just enough of what’s out there to service whatever story elements are required to lift a particular tale to whatever modest heights it can achieve. The hope is that this greater creative freedom of expression will also serve everyone involved, leaving ample room for contributions both before and behind the camera. Furthermore, it’s often been argued that these smaller features can create a greater sense of intimacy between the storyteller and the audience because all of the layers normally between them with the big studio production has been stripped away: what everyone is left with is bare bones myth-making, the likes of which might have a few intrinsic flaws because of the nature of guerrilla shooting but won’t stop short of trying to realize something special despite missing some of the usual theatrical niceties.
Alas, that just isn’t the case with 2024’s Alien Love, a somewhat bizarre and increasingly irrelevant amalgam of small(ish) and rarely important sequences involving a beautiful young woman coming to grips with the fact that her astronaut husband is no longer who he was before that cursed space flight. Having been to NASA perhaps a dozen times, I’ve picked up a lot of casual knowledge regarding how space flights transpire; and yet none of this public knowledge seems to have been a part and parcel of star and screenwriter Nathan Hill’s effort. Directed by Simon Oliver, this undercooked melodrama never quite achieves orbit with any of its individual plotlines, instead touching back down to land repeatedly with one nebulous development after another. While the whole ‘returning to Earth in another guise’ has been done before, dare I say it’s never been quite this uninteresting?
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“Astronaut Ryan Van Hill-Song returns from space, a hero. His wife, Sadie, suspects his time in space went wrong and discovers they're pregnant. NASA sends men to track them down.”
Having cut my teeth at a very young age with a great number of flicks exploring aliens, I was most attracted to the idea at the heart of Alien Love.
Set against the backdrop of a NASA mission, astronaut Ryan Van Hill-Song (played by Nathan Hill) returns to our world after a brief mishap in the heavens found him separated from the American space agency for a few minutes. Though the officials assure his wife Sadie (Ira Chakraborty) that her husband was never in any real jeopardy, it becomes increasingly clear to the woman that her man is not quite himself. While she can’t quite put her finger on what may’ve caused his increasingly reckless decisions, she does what any faithful spouse does and tries to make the best of it. But an unanticipated pregnancy – with her body seemingly enduring some unimaged stressors – puts Sadie in the position of needing to get to the bottom of this mystery before she possibly gives birth to the first human/alien hybrid!
You see what I mean? That definitely sounds like an interesting story.
Sadly, that isn’t what director Oliver and screenwriter Hill deliver. The vast majority of what they do call Alien Love invests serious screen time in jogging, wandering, and general listlessness. The film never quite finds a pace comfortable with so much obliqueness: neither Hill nor Chakraborty are given strong enough material to make their individual or shared scenes have any textual relevance, and we’re instead taken on a minute-by-minute recounting of daily routines that infrequently involves a light plot development or two. Why, it’s almost like they had no idea where this was all going! I think that’s the likely conclusion audiences will make with the stunningly befuddling last scene.
Now – ahem – this is exceedingly low budget storytelling, and I’ve absolutely no problem with that. Those of us who’ve made small careers out of exploring some of these lesser productions and direct-to-DVD releases have grown used to what I’ll dub ‘no frills’ storytelling … and, yet, that’s the central problem to so much of Love, that being there’s no story really being told. Revelations are made. Events happen. Occasionally, people react. But there’s no organic flow to any of it. Instead, viewers are dragged from one unimportant scene to another, rarely given any greater context than ‘this is what’s happening now.’ No tissue grows between us and its characters. No shared dependence gets introduced at any point. Lacking any strong emotional undercurrent or connectivity, so much of Ryan and Sadie’s journey are just signposts in life. There’s no flavor to their relationship or their individuality. When we aren’t given characters we can invest in, we don’t care … and this one closes with no care whatsoever.
Generally speaking, the best indies are capable of making the best of what resources they have available, using just enough of what’s out there to service whatever story elements are required to lift a particular tale to whatever modest heights it can achieve. The hope is that this greater creative freedom of expression will also serve everyone involved, leaving ample room for contributions both before and behind the camera. Furthermore, it’s often been argued that these smaller features can create a greater sense of intimacy between the storyteller and the audience because all of the layers normally between them with the big studio production has been stripped away: what everyone is left with is bare bones myth-making, the likes of which might have a few intrinsic flaws because of the nature of guerrilla shooting but won’t stop short of trying to realize something special despite missing some of the usual theatrical niceties.
Alas, that just isn’t the case with 2024’s Alien Love, a somewhat bizarre and increasingly irrelevant amalgam of small(ish) and rarely important sequences involving a beautiful young woman coming to grips with the fact that her astronaut husband is no longer who he was before that cursed space flight. Having been to NASA perhaps a dozen times, I’ve picked up a lot of casual knowledge regarding how space flights transpire; and yet none of this public knowledge seems to have been a part and parcel of star and screenwriter Nathan Hill’s effort. Directed by Simon Oliver, this undercooked melodrama never quite achieves orbit with any of its individual plotlines, instead touching back down to land repeatedly with one nebulous development after another. While the whole ‘returning to Earth in another guise’ has been done before, dare I say it’s never been quite this uninteresting?
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“Astronaut Ryan Van Hill-Song returns from space, a hero. His wife, Sadie, suspects his time in space went wrong and discovers they're pregnant. NASA sends men to track them down.”
Having cut my teeth at a very young age with a great number of flicks exploring aliens, I was most attracted to the idea at the heart of Alien Love.
Set against the backdrop of a NASA mission, astronaut Ryan Van Hill-Song (played by Nathan Hill) returns to our world after a brief mishap in the heavens found him separated from the American space agency for a few minutes. Though the officials assure his wife Sadie (Ira Chakraborty) that her husband was never in any real jeopardy, it becomes increasingly clear to the woman that her man is not quite himself. While she can’t quite put her finger on what may’ve caused his increasingly reckless decisions, she does what any faithful spouse does and tries to make the best of it. But an unanticipated pregnancy – with her body seemingly enduring some unimaged stressors – puts Sadie in the position of needing to get to the bottom of this mystery before she possibly gives birth to the first human/alien hybrid!
You see what I mean? That definitely sounds like an interesting story.
Sadly, that isn’t what director Oliver and screenwriter Hill deliver. The vast majority of what they do call Alien Love invests serious screen time in jogging, wandering, and general listlessness. The film never quite finds a pace comfortable with so much obliqueness: neither Hill nor Chakraborty are given strong enough material to make their individual or shared scenes have any textual relevance, and we’re instead taken on a minute-by-minute recounting of daily routines that infrequently involves a light plot development or two. Why, it’s almost like they had no idea where this was all going! I think that’s the likely conclusion audiences will make with the stunningly befuddling last scene.
Now – ahem – this is exceedingly low budget storytelling, and I’ve absolutely no problem with that. Those of us who’ve made small careers out of exploring some of these lesser productions and direct-to-DVD releases have grown used to what I’ll dub ‘no frills’ storytelling … and, yet, that’s the central problem to so much of Love, that being there’s no story really being told. Revelations are made. Events happen. Occasionally, people react. But there’s no organic flow to any of it. Instead, viewers are dragged from one unimportant scene to another, rarely given any greater context than ‘this is what’s happening now.’ No tissue grows between us and its characters. No shared dependence gets introduced at any point. Lacking any strong emotional undercurrent or connectivity, so much of Ryan and Sadie’s journey are just signposts in life. There’s no flavor to their relationship or their individuality. When we aren’t given characters we can invest in, we don’t care … and this one closes with no care whatsoever.
Of course, it doesn’t help matters that so much of Love has such dull, lifeless cinematography.
So many scenes are crafted as if Oliver only had a single camera, and the fact that there’s so little visual interplay offering multiple perspectives slows this thing down to a crawl even when the opposite is supposed to happen. The only sequence I recall having any modest cinematic tension was the Aliens Anonymous stuff. What saddens me about that (beyond the obvious) is that nothing fundamental to the central story is learned there; and – if push came to shove – it could be excised from the film entirely and nothing would be lost. That and the fact that there’s a huge continuity error in the big showdown – it involves an agent’s missing jacket that miraculously returns for the finish – truly smacks of amateurism when it’s needed least.
At the risk of sounding like a fuddy-duddy, I couldn’t help but also notice that there appears to be a significant age difference between this supposed married couple. At first, I thought that perhaps I had misheard a line of dialogue, mistaking that Sadie and Ryan were actually married, so I backed it up to ensure I knew the extent of their relationship before continuing. Though I’m not aghast at the prospect of a man marrying a woman fifteen or twenty years younger, it grew increasingly difficult to see these two characters in an authentic pairing as the feature wore on. Perhaps Hill should’ve stepped aside from his material and let a younger actor be cast? His midsection, too, isn’t the kind seen on most astronauts, either.
Still, it’s ultimately hard to figure Alien Love out.
It closes with a scene that tries to make some big statement about life in the universe; and yet the characters making that very statement are already on record as not believing we are alone. Am I truly to be surprised in that closing scene as they are despite their already being on record as to knowing aliens exist, or was this just another glaring storytelling hiccup? Sorry, folks: to paraphrase The X-Files ‘the truth is out there’ … mostly because no one felt it was a necessary component of this narrative mess.
Alien Love (2024) was produced by NHProductions. DVD distribution (for this particular release) has been coordinated by the fine folks at Sector 5 and Warner Archive. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I found the provided sights-and-sounds to be acceptable across the film’s 75-minute running time: there’s no great cinematography in here – well, maybe a snippet or two – so it’s hard to find positives amidst so much plainness. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? Well, on that count, it’s a nice collection (if you’re inclined to spend time with them) as the disc boasts an audio commentary, deleted scenes, bloopers, stills galleries, interviews, and the theatrical trailer.
Alas, folks … this one is honestly Hard To Recommend.
It isn’t as if Alien Love (2024) is a bad film because – as a modestly produced independent feature – it is what it is. However, there’s no escaping the fact that the flick is utterly void of any real story, instead stringing along a few characters around a few interesting ideas, none of which get any true resolution in the last confusing reveal. Given the fact that everyone involved already knows that we’re not alone in the universe, why is there any surprise when the big saucer threatens to land on anyone’s lawn, especially the agents of ‘NASA Intelligence’ who’ve previously confirmed that the aliens are here? It’s an utterly confusing finale that stinks like the storytellers ran out of money and had to make do with what they had.
Good grief.
Even fans of independent cinema deserve better than this.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Warner Archive provided me with a complimentary Blu-ray of Alien Love (2024) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
So many scenes are crafted as if Oliver only had a single camera, and the fact that there’s so little visual interplay offering multiple perspectives slows this thing down to a crawl even when the opposite is supposed to happen. The only sequence I recall having any modest cinematic tension was the Aliens Anonymous stuff. What saddens me about that (beyond the obvious) is that nothing fundamental to the central story is learned there; and – if push came to shove – it could be excised from the film entirely and nothing would be lost. That and the fact that there’s a huge continuity error in the big showdown – it involves an agent’s missing jacket that miraculously returns for the finish – truly smacks of amateurism when it’s needed least.
At the risk of sounding like a fuddy-duddy, I couldn’t help but also notice that there appears to be a significant age difference between this supposed married couple. At first, I thought that perhaps I had misheard a line of dialogue, mistaking that Sadie and Ryan were actually married, so I backed it up to ensure I knew the extent of their relationship before continuing. Though I’m not aghast at the prospect of a man marrying a woman fifteen or twenty years younger, it grew increasingly difficult to see these two characters in an authentic pairing as the feature wore on. Perhaps Hill should’ve stepped aside from his material and let a younger actor be cast? His midsection, too, isn’t the kind seen on most astronauts, either.
Still, it’s ultimately hard to figure Alien Love out.
It closes with a scene that tries to make some big statement about life in the universe; and yet the characters making that very statement are already on record as not believing we are alone. Am I truly to be surprised in that closing scene as they are despite their already being on record as to knowing aliens exist, or was this just another glaring storytelling hiccup? Sorry, folks: to paraphrase The X-Files ‘the truth is out there’ … mostly because no one felt it was a necessary component of this narrative mess.
Alien Love (2024) was produced by NHProductions. DVD distribution (for this particular release) has been coordinated by the fine folks at Sector 5 and Warner Archive. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I found the provided sights-and-sounds to be acceptable across the film’s 75-minute running time: there’s no great cinematography in here – well, maybe a snippet or two – so it’s hard to find positives amidst so much plainness. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? Well, on that count, it’s a nice collection (if you’re inclined to spend time with them) as the disc boasts an audio commentary, deleted scenes, bloopers, stills galleries, interviews, and the theatrical trailer.
Alas, folks … this one is honestly Hard To Recommend.
It isn’t as if Alien Love (2024) is a bad film because – as a modestly produced independent feature – it is what it is. However, there’s no escaping the fact that the flick is utterly void of any real story, instead stringing along a few characters around a few interesting ideas, none of which get any true resolution in the last confusing reveal. Given the fact that everyone involved already knows that we’re not alone in the universe, why is there any surprise when the big saucer threatens to land on anyone’s lawn, especially the agents of ‘NASA Intelligence’ who’ve previously confirmed that the aliens are here? It’s an utterly confusing finale that stinks like the storytellers ran out of money and had to make do with what they had.
Good grief.
Even fans of independent cinema deserve better than this.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Warner Archive provided me with a complimentary Blu-ray of Alien Love (2024) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
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