Directed by: Zach Clark
Distributed by: Dark Star Pictures
Written by Michael Clawson
60/100
“I guess we’re gonna have to start assimilating sooner rather than later,” says one body-hopping alien to its partner in “The Becomers.” Making the intergalactic journey to earth from a distant planet is one thing, but as this movie’s pair of extraterrestrial lovers find out, making sense of everyday American life, in the year 2020 no less, is something else entirely.
A comic sci-fi romance that plays like a sketch drawn out to feature length, the film picks up with its two aliens after they’ve landed on earth, separated, and begun wending their way through suburban Illinois in search of each other. They awkwardly occupy their human hosts, wearing sunglasses whenever they can to hide their glowing neon eyes (a thrifty visual effect in a film with a good handful of them). With their shades, stilted speech, and dryly absurdist interactions with various offbeat humans, these aliens could just as well be in a Jim Jarmusch movie.
But the director here is Zach Clack, whose last feature, 2016’s “Little Sister,” was named the best film of its year by The New Yorker’s Richard Brody. “Little Sister” was a tender family drama evocatively backdropped by the Iraq War and the 2008 presidential election. “The Becomers” shifts into the realm of genre film, but it too is preoccupied with the political mood of a recent moment in time. Mask-wearing, Christian conspiracy theorists, and the abduction of a state governor make for a uniquely strange visit to earth by two lovesick aliens, who are just trying to keep to themselves and make a life together.
What’s frustrating is how flimsy “The Becomers” feels. Even though they spend a good stretch of the film’s runtime in the bodies of a suburban husband and wife (who are less harmless than they appear), the aliens hardly register as proper characters; they’re weak narrative anchors. The craft is uneven: goopy practical effects might satisfy a viewer’s hankering for some body horror, but the plainness of the camerawork undercuts scene after scene. And while the one big joke that the plot builds towards is funny, it’s one that another film from this year, “The Sweet East,” told with more punch in its first few minutes alone. The highlights: indie filmmaker Frank V. Ross in the role of an over-friendly motel clerk, and a movie-stealing performance by actor Keith Kelly as a bellicose politician.
“The Becomers” Trailer
Michael Clawson is a member of the Seattle Film Critic Society you can follow his passion for film on Letterboxd.