“Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out”

“Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, will be the opening night feature at this year’s Capital City Film Festival. It’s a feel-good choice for families who want to munch popcorn together while sharing the festival experience.

The Levan family moves from New York City to a small town in Utah to renovate and flip a house. Teen daughter Itsy (Emma Tremblay) wants nothing more than to get back to the city and decides to enter a writing contest to win a spot at a summer journalism workshop at New York University by writing an article about the strangest thing in her town. Her new friend Heather convinces her that the story should be about their classmate Calvin (Jacob Buster), the town weirdo who shows up to school in a spacesuit. 

Itsy soon discovers that Calvin believes his parents were abducted by aliens and that they will be back to get him soon, as the comet the aliens’ ship follows is approaching Earth again. She becomes torn between her desire to win the contest and her growing affection for Calvin.

The plot is formulaic and predictable but executed well. It’s a story about family, friendships and young love with some sci-fi thrown in. The production value is high, including the cinematography and judicious use of special effects, but this cute, comforting story needs few such enhancements to effectively deliver its message.

Perhaps the most entertaining element of the story is Itsy’s precocious little brother, Evan (Kenneth Cummins). While characters like this can be grating, writer Austin Everett gave Evan some of the best lines, and Cummins delivers them with perfect timing. 

“Saturday Night Live” alumnus Will Forte does a fine job as Calvin’s father, but the other adults in supporting roles shine bright. As Itsy’s parents, Matt Biedel and Hailey Smith are a hoot. Elizabeth Mitchell, known for her roles on “Lost” and, recently, “The Outer Banks,” grounds the plot in the reality of a mother suffering an identity crisis.

In an interview with IndieWire, Everett and director Jake Van Wagoner noted that they wanted to create a family movie that harkened back to 1980s film fare. Although the film lacks the gravitas of “WarGames” or “ET the Extra-Terrestrial,” it does emulate the atmosphere of lighter teen adventure flicks of the era.