TIFF Review: EXTRATERRESTRIAL

If there’s one thing I like about TIFF, it’s the potential for surprise.

When cobbling together my selections, I happened upon EXTRATERRESTRIAL by director Nacho Vigalondo. Earlier this year, Kai Parker was kind enough to send me a dvd copy of TIMECRIMES and I fell hard for that film. Thus, marking myself down for the director’s follow-up effort was a no-brainer…especially if there were extraterrestrials involved!

But such shotgun action where making one’s selections are concerned can lead to interesting results…like seeing a film called EXTRATERRESTRIAL with no extraterrestrials. That isn’t a bad thing in this instance, just surprising.

The film is the story of Julia and Julio, who we meet the morning after a one-night-stand. As they go through the awkward tango of piecing things together and gathering themselves together, they make a stunning discovery: there is a gigantic UFO hovering over Madrid. They’re not entirely sure what to make of this shocking development, but they’re both pretty sure they shouldn’t be out traversing the streets. But back to the fact that they’ve just hit-it-and-quit-it. Turns out there are two complications: Not only does Julia have a live-in boyfriend named Carlos, but she also has a nosy/infatuated neighbour named Angel.

Can they hide what they’ve done from Carlos? Can they keep Angel from blowing their cover? Was what they did really just for one night? And does any of it matter when the world could end at any moment?

I must declare here and now, that this film is in no way a sci-fi, and anyone going into thinking it is will likely be disappointed. It’s actually a hard departure from TIMECRIMES – which is not a bad thing as it allows writer/director Nacho Vigalondo to stretch his legs a bit and try something different. On the surface, it’s a cute look at how people can get pulled in several directions when trying to figure out personal problems during a larger crisis. Once we get into the actual mechanics of the situation, we see that’s a zany farce of a pickle worthy of an episode of Three’s Company.

But…y’know…smarter.

Vigalondo has taken his cast of five actors and guided them to a movie with so much charm, and also one that has fun playing around with paranoia. He has taken a grand concept – and alien invasion – and used it to cast a shadow over the simpler story of four people in a weird web of zany infidelity. It’s not the film we expect, but in the end we realize that it’s the film we want.

Come for the promise of aliens. Stay for the use of tennis balls.