Resident Alien
2021
Original language: English
- sci-fi & fantasy
The story
Crash-landed alien Harry takes on the identity of a small-town Colorado doctor. Arriving with a secret mission, he starts off living a simple life…but things get a bit rocky when he’s roped into solving a local murder and realizes he needs to assimilate into his new world. As he does, he begins to wrestle with the moral dilemma of his mission and asking the big life questions like: “Are human beings worth saving?” and “Why do they fold their pizza before eating it?”
What it’s like
Dry, sun-faded small-town Colorado: wide mountain skylines, pine-green hills, and rooms lit by plain daylight and kitchen fluorescents, with a comic-book sensibility showing in bright, saturated color and clean, punchy framing. The camera stays mostly conventional, with quick cuts for gags and steady two-shots for the quieter exchanges between characters. The sound is light and tongue-in-cheek, a bouncy, slightly whimsical score that undercuts the odd bit of menace. Its vibe is wry, scrappy and warmly absurd, a fish-out-of-water comedy that never fully settles into one register. It suits a lazy weekend evening, a stretch of background watching, or a light comfort rewatch. Pacing is brisk and episodic, with deadpan one-liners and sudden bursts of slapstick, while the emotional core follows an alien slowly learning to care about the people around him and reckoning with whether they deserve rescue. Intensity is mild to moderate: some crude language, occasional sharp violence and a murder investigation, but the blood and threat stay cartoonish and never linger. It is for viewers who enjoy sardonic humour, oddball ensemble casts and gentle sci-fi with a hint of cynicism.
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