Parents' Guide to Landscape with Invisible Hand

This thought-provoking allegory about oppression is wrapped up as a young-adult romance crossed with an alien dramedy. While the aliens in Landscape with Invisible Hand are more Men in Black than War of the Worlds or Signs, there's still a post-war, post-apocalyptic sensibility to the story. Humans, who are now oppressed and kept out of the Vuvv-dominated economy, must make do with synthetic food, module-based learning, and mass unemployment. Even neurosurgeons are in service to the cartoonish, ottoman-shaped aliens, who are obsessed with 1940s and '50s pop culture (which they consider "peak" humanity). Blackk, who was so memorable as Malik in This Is Us, and Haddish carry the dramatic and comedic aspects of the story, respectively. And Rogers is well-cast as the clever, if wily, Chloe, who isn't above exploiting her (or Adam's) feelings for basic needs like food and shelter.

Hinley has a lot to say about life under occupation, the social and economic ills of colonialism, the importance of artistic expression, the use of propaganda, and more. It's almost too much. This is ultimately the sort of movie you expect to fit into one or two genres, but it takes a turn and does something unexpected instead. If the screenplay had taken more time exploring the ways that the Vuvv have exploited people, the tone might not have felt as uneven. The intriguing premise and the talented cast still make this adaptation worth seeing, but the story may also leave viewers with a sense of unfulfilled potential.