Landscape with Invisible Hand

"Landscape with Invisible Hand" is a 2023 satirical sci-fi comedy that attempts to critique capitalism, economic exploitation, and class divisions through interactions with quirky alien beings called the Vuvv. The film's satire occasionally teeters on the edge of parody as it portrays the Vuvv as whimsical and amusing visitors rather than imposing invaders. The story follows teenager Adam Campbell in a world where the Vuvv have left humanity financially distressed and creatively stifled. While the film has an inventive premise, it struggles with an overabundance of ideas and tonal inconsistency. The characters are emotionally detached, making it hard to connect with them. Despite its promise, the film often falls short in delivering a deep exploration of its themes. The portrayal of the Vuvv verges on becoming caricatures, and the film's tonal shifts disrupt the overall experience. However, it retains an odd charm and occasional moments of amusement, making it worth a watch for those open to its quirky journey.

In the near future, aliens called Vuvv have made first contact some five years earlier. After some resistance, the aliens found capitalist allies to take over the economy. Together, they live on floating cities while the population on the ground struggles with joblessness. Artistic student Adam Campbell (Asante Blackk) falls for new student Chloe Marsh (Kylie Rogers). Adam convinces his mother Beth Campbell (Tiffany Haddish) to take in Chloe's homeless family. In order to make some money, Adam and Chloe decide to do a courtship broadcast.

This is one weird sci-fi concept. Like other great sci-fi, this says more about the present day situation. This is really about today's growing underclass and their hopelessness. Blackk is an intriguing actor. The alien design is unique and weird. There are issues for a general public audience. A lot of this film is awkward and uncomfortable. It could be funny as long as the viewer isn't disturbed by the material.

The Vuvv represent all the worst aspects of modern, neo-liberal capitalism, imposing a world order in which one can only survive by being their direct servants, their paid mouthpieces (and they'll alter your message or art to make sure its acceptable), or by underbidding everyone else to sell one's labor, although that last option leaves you and yours only barely scraping by.

Unions are obviously a thing of the past, and cultural imperialism is being implemented to assimilate humans into the Vuvv way. It's all straight out of the playbooks of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Reason and The Economist, The Cato Institute and more think tanks than you could shake a stick at. Unfortunately for humanity, the Vuvv breath life into a theory and practice of neo-liberalism, whether it's called Reaganism, Thatcherism or Blairism, that is intellectually and empirically worn out, and can now only be implemented by fascists wearing a populist face.

In other words, Landscape with Invisible Hand stands in the grand tradition of Star Trek and The Twilight Zone, hiding themes and messages meant for today behind science fiction trappings. Overall, it's a good film, and a nice break from dystopian fiction in the style of A Quite Place, The Walking Dead and The Rest of Us.

This film is a mixed bag of genres that really didn't work when combined. The story started off with so much promising potential with the initial premise being very creative, then it devolves into a narrative that was just too convoluted, inconsistent, lacking impact, and riddled with tonal inconsistencies that will leave you scratching your head. Even the attempts at humor were more cringe than laughs.

The filmmaker's ambition surpassed his execution, that struggled to balance a social commentary, a coming-of-age romance, and a sci-fi dystopian cautionary tale. Sadly, the film ends up failing on both dramatic and comedic levels, and ultimately is underwhelming and will leave you feeling frustratingly unsatisfied, especially the ending, which felt lazy and rushed.

I will credit this film with some impressively staged sequences and set pieces with great performances by all cast members, but that wasn't enough to overshadow this film's failure to tell a compelling story. Maybe in the hands of better filmmakers, this may have been a hit, but as is, it's a miss, and a loss of 105 poorly paced minutes I'll never get back. It's a generous 6/10 for the great concept, performances, cinematography and score.

I just saw landscape with invisible hand and it was really good, I loved the way this movie was shot, it was a very creative movie and pretty unique to, I cared about everything that was going on and I was pretty into it as well, I am surprised that this film was not distributed by A24 and was Distributed by mgm. There is one major flaw with the movie though, and that flaw is that it feels like it drags on, the film is only 1h 45m, yet it feels longer than that. Other than that, it was a really good movie that kept me captivated and I do hope we get more movies like this in the future. Overall, I give this an 8/10, I highly recommend you go and support this movie, it deserves more love, it is a hidden gem.