Extraterrestrial (Nacho Vigalondo, 2011): Spain

Reviewed by Li Peyron. Viewed at the AFI Fest 2011.

Extraterrestrial was the first movie we saw at the AFI Fest 2011 and I really enjoyed it. By reading about it first I thought that it was going to be a movie about aliens. But it turned out to be a hiding meaning in the movie – love! I think I laughed my way trough the entire movie and do not think I can come up with something that wasn’t good about it.

The director (Nacho Vigalondo) did a good job by doing the set in a cool apartment, I think that it made it more real that we got to see where Julia lived. And I think it was funny that almost the whole movie was shot in that same apartment.

Julia and Julio are the two main characters in this film. The film begins a little bit awkward for both of the characters. It seems like they had a one night stand and now Julia is trying to get Julio out of the apartment because her boyfriend is on the way home. But Julio takes his time by putting his clothes on and looking around in the apartment. After a few minutes they realize that nothing in the apartment has any connection. No TV, no radio, no phones are working. Julio opens up the window and looks out to an empty street and an empty town. All of the sudden there´s a giant thing flying over their town. It turns out it´s an ufo. Julia decides to let Julio stay because it is probably not safe to walk around in the town while there´s a flying ufo over it.

When Julia´s boyfriend turns up, Julia makes something up about why Julio is in their home. And her boyfriend has no clue what´s so ever and invites Julio to stay for dinner. During the dinner, Julia´s neighbor, Angel, stops by and this is when all the fun starts…

I especially liked Michelle Jenner who played Julia. She was so cute with her big eyes and you just wanted things to go well for her, even though she cheated on her boyfriend.

This movie made me smile from the beginning to the end. I love listening to spanish so this was a perfect way to do that. I would recommend people to go and see it just because it was so different from other films I´ve seen. It was like no other movie and the story is actually kind of funny. So people, go see Extraterrestrial!