The Vuvv have taken over.
You might look at these small, slimy space aliens and think, Hey, where were our Rambo super soldiers and their good old American muscle? Why didn’t we humans just drop-kick these critters back to the interstellar ugly farm they came from?
The problem is, technical superiority can easily make up for a lack of muscle and big boots. Think: a laser blaster next to a bow and arrow. The Vuvv zoomed in with their ginormous ships and weapons and swept any human resistance aside without even trying.
Of course, when they subsequently gave the populace all the fabricated meat, vegies and beer they could ever want, the complaints died down. OK, Adam Campbell is still complaining. He just does it quietly. And then the teen vents his feelings in a drawing or painting. That’s how he handles his feelings.
Anyway, the food supply is OK. But it’s no picnic being down here on Earth where there are no jobs and no real income anymore. The only humans with any money are the ones that get accepted into the floating cities in the sky above. But even those lucky few—the neurosurgeons and astrophysicists—end up doing rather menial jobs. (It’s a power-trip thing that the aliens enjoy.)
Then Adam meets a plucky new girl in his school’s art class named Chloe Marsh. He’s quickly smitten with her. And, well, kinda happy. Hey, time with a cute girl can even make alien domination feel a little better. But that’s not all. Their mutual case of the likes gives Chloe a great idea.
You see, the Vuvv have given every human a Bluetooth-like device, a node, that they attach to their temple. The Vuvv use them to communicate with humans and, well, keep an eye on them.
More importantly, though, the humans can use those same devices to entertain their alien masters. The Vuvv are particularly interested in one facet of the human experience that is foreign to their culture: love. So Chloe suggests that she and Adam make their budding romance public in a pay-per-view type deal.
Adam agrees and the cash starts rolling in. It’s a win-win. But, there’s yet another problem. When the two young love birds get a little bored with each other, as humans are wont to do, the Vuvvs quickly catch on to their lack of enthusiasm. And big trouble comes soon after.
Man! Making good videos, and this love thing, are so hard!
Adam Campbell paints to express himself. That not only endears Chloe to him, but it also encourages others. After meeting Chloe and finding out that her family is on the street, he invites them to live in the basement of his house. (His single mom, Beth, isn’t so happy about this invitation, but she recognizes the Marsh family’s need.)
Adam loves his mother and sister and feels the weight of doing what it takes to care for their needs financially. But he also struggles to be true to other values that both his parents taught him: to be honest, upright and self-respecting.
Beth and a Vuvv walk through a marriage ceremony that includes vows. The ceremony, however, is more about entertaining and appeasing the Vuvv, who wants to recreate a family life it had seen on a TV show.
In art class, Chloe jokingly draws a humorously crude sketch that represents a part of a male model’s anatomy. She and Adam kiss several times. Adam, however, becomes self-conscious about kissing while wearing the alien nodes and refuses to do so unless they shut down their broadcast.
“I guess I want to know that you wanna spend time with me without anyone watching,” he tells her.
[Spoiler Warning] After a Vuvv moves in with Adam’s family (marrying his mother in a fake wedding), Adam spots his mom asleep (fully dressed) with the Vuvv sleeping on her back. Later, Chloe’s dad takes over that “wife” role—wearing a blonde woman’s wig and dressing in a woman’s apron—and we see the Vuvv sleeping on his chest at night.
This isn’t a film about humans fighting back against their alien overlords. It’s more about existing under oppression than battle.
However, we do see the depression and anxiety that captivity causes. And in one case, that translates into bloody violence as a teacher is relieved of his position and subsequently shoots himself in the head on the school sign as students are passing by. We see him fall and the gore splattered behind him.
The Vuvv rip an entire wall off a building to save a mural painted there. And they do other things—smashing windows, dropping mounds of refuse and ripping up the ground—without regard to the human lives around them. In fact, they see humankind as almost pet-like slaves to their will.
There are a half-dozen f-words and seven s-words in the dialogue, along with multiple uses each of the words “a–,” “d–n” and “b–ch.” God’s and Jesus’ names are misused two times each. And there are a couple of crude references made to the male anatomy.
After Chloe and Adam earn a little extra money, the family drinks wine with dinner. And later Mr. Marsh gives teen Adam a beer to drink.
After being offered a place to stay, Chloe’s family members are less grateful than you’d expect. In fact, her dad and brother, Hunter, are actually self-righteously angry that the Campbells own their own home. And they lash out at times. Arguments break out when Beth tries to lay down some sensible rules for the two families living in her home.
The Vuvv praise a mural that Adam paints and want to hire him to work as a resident artist, but they crudely alter his painting to represent the message they want to communicate to the human and alien world.
In time, Adam comes to feel that Chloe never really cared for him but simply wanted to use him through their broadcasts to make money. We see that Mr. Marsh and Hunter are willing to change and even debase themselves in order to please the aliens and reap monetary benefits.
Adam’s father abandoned the Campbell family while making promises to return soon. And Adam nearly does the same. In a school lesson video, the Vuvv make the case that their attack on Earth actually saved humankind from destroying itself through global warming.
What makes for good art?
That’s a question that’s difficult to answer. And if you ask 10 different people, you’ll likely get 10 different answers. That’s because art is more than just a combination of line, color and composition. It’s more than an interesting image or construct. Art is a means of communication. Good art makes you feel. It makes you think.
I bring that up because art and painting are a central part of what Landscape With Invisible Hand is all about. Specifically, the art of protagonist Adam Campbell. And in fact, this film is very much a piece of art itself.
On the surface, it’s simply a creatively odd slice of science fiction. It’s the tale of a beleaguered mankind intermixing with aliens that look like a cross between a plucked turkey and a coffee table. You could watch this film and see nothing more than that: something silly looking, abstract and pointless.
On the other hand, you can watch this film and find subtle nods to racial and social strife in our real world. You can find statements about the evils of a heavy-handed government or the brutality of commercialism. There’s even cinematic subtext here about the resilience of a downtrodden people, the hopefulness found in a painted picture and the perils of social media.
Landscape With Invisible Hand can remind you of everything or, well, nothing. Like art.
Now, whether or not this quirky film is good art is in the eye and mind of the beholder. But I can tell you that along with whatever subtext you find here, your eye and mind will also be confronted with some sexual giggles, blatant bigotry, bloody violence, a dash of underage drinking and quite a bit of f-word-fueled language.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
