While everyone was chuckling at the titles of certain Oscar-nominated short films this week, another uniquely appellated feature was making the rounds in Park City. Jake Van Wagoner’s Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out premiered as part of Sundance’s kids section.
With a name like that, it better deliver on the sort of goofy fun that kids in the 80s had with The Flight of the Navigator, The Explorers, and The Last Starfighter. While Aliens Abducted My Parents does offer some sweet and silly moments, will today’s kids been drawn in by its preference for earnestness? Maybe not.
We meet 7-year-old Calvin (Thomas Cummins) and his dad (Will Forte) on their roof. With telescope at the ready, Calvin awaits Jesper’s Comet. His dad is trying to tell him something important, but before he gets the chance, a bright light shines over their house. Everything is a chaotic swirl of wind and debris. Once it dies down, Calvin realizes his parents are gone. Aliens abducted them. He was left behind.
Ten years later, grumbling teenager Itsy (Emma Tremblay) is mad at her parents. They’ve yanked her out of New York City to live in a country house miles from anything interesting. She and her younger brother Evan (Kenneth Cummins) run across now-teenaged Calvin (Jacob Buster). At school, Calvin is the odd kid out, always talking about strange scientific phenomenon. But his most important past time is tracking the return of Jesper’s Comet and with it, his parents.
The setup is cute and Van Wagoner makes good use of the Utah landscape where he shot the film. Its young stars are good in that Disney+ Original sort of way. Emma Tremblay and Jacob Buster have the awkward teenage chemistry that works. Itsy is thrilled about a writing assignment that could get her back to the city. But writing an unflattering profile on Calvin soon feels cruel as she gets to know him and his lonely life.
Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out is not as fun as its title promises. It doesn’t offer much new or unique as kids’ entertainment goes. The clichés and obvious bits of dialogue are easy to spot. But it is sweet and harmless, delving into some serious topics with surprising poignancy. It may not be groundbreaking, but we can always use more movies about kids learning to care about each other. Honestly, we could use more of those for grown ups too.