So this film turned out to be much different than I expected it to be.

Milton (Ben Kingsley) is an older man living alone, beginning to show signs of forgetting things that worries his daughter Denise (Zoe Winters). One day, a spaceship crashed landed in Milton’s backyard and he finds an alien on his back step. Taking the alien inside, Milton bonds with the silent spaceman despite some of his comments to other people in the town lead to Denise doubting whether Milton could take care of himself anymore.

There are some parts of the premise for this movie that made me iffy about it. Specifically, the choice for the alien, eventually named Jules, to be silent is always a challenge. With one character that is verbal and the other character that is non-verbal makes it difficult to connect. However, the film does a smart thing and gives Kingsley two verbal connections in the film in Jane Curtin and Harriet Sansom Harris, as the characters of Joyce and Sandy respectfully, to interact with.

Truthfully, this film is not about Jules. It is about the three human characters and the loneliness that they feel. Jules is just the catalyst of the plot to bring Milton, Joyce and Sandy into their own orbits and to examine their personal issues at a deeper level. Each of the three characters brought a different set of troubles that were very familiar to any person, especially those of an advancing age.

I absolutely loved Harriet Sansom Harris in this film. She was such a warm and loving person who seemed to find such a connection with Jules, something that she was missing in her life. Harris is a great actor and she had excellent chemistry with Ben Kingsley. Kingsley was also excellent here as a lot of his acting came with some specific non-verbal moments, with glances and looks that told more than just his words could. Jane Curtin had less to do in the story, but she did knock home what she got to do.

The relationships were the key, but the plot itself was not working near as well. In fact, a lot of the plot of the film seemed just in the way, in particular part of the story that involved a government agency. There was also a story beat involving cats that was simply weird.

So while the film does not come together very well, the strength of the ensemble really works. This is much more of a character piece than a sci-fi movie. There are some funny moments and some deeper than expected ideas. Though everything does not necessarily work well together and I may not have loved the ending, the strength of Kingsley, Harris and Curtin made me want to know what was to become of these characters and that is a success for a film.

3.4 stars