Jules: Movie Review

Cast: Ben Kingsley, Jane Curtin, Harriet Samson Harris, Zoe Winters, Jade Quon
Director: Marc Turteltaub

Echoes of quirk side with waves of melancholy in Marc Turteltaub's Jules, a film about alienation and actual aliens.

Kingsley stars as Milton an aging inhabitant of a small Pennsylvania town in the US. He spends his week railing at the town hall over the perceived misunderstanding of the town's slogan and campaigning for a crossing.

Along with two other older residents, he's dismissed regularly, something which aligns with his home life as his daughter worries over his failing mind and his son's inability to call talk to him from California.

But it all changes one night when an alien craft drops from the sky and crushes his beloved flowers...

There's an occasionally maudlin meditation to Jules, a film that posits elderly shouldn't be dismissed and shows, much like Plan 75 did, the ease with which society glosses over that age group. From Milton's continual weekly requests at the Town Hall to his insistence on ignoring potential medical problems, the societal ostracism is rife.

Kingsley puts in a reserved and almost ambiguous turn as Milton, imbuing him with as much pathos as is possible. It's subtlety that's the key here, and Kingsley leaves the audience in no doubt that he's a master of it when it counts.

But as his Milton finds his voice, largely thanks to Quon's alien, Curtin and Samson-Harris also come to the fore, adding layers as his elderly compatriots who are both searching for something in their twilight years. It's not so much a formidable trio at work here, more a group suddenly rising up when needs be.

Quon also deserves commendation for her role as Jules the alien, a relatively stark performance with expressiveness bringing out the best of others.

Whilst there's dry whimsical humour at play here amongst the lightest of sci-fi trappings, Turteltaub doesn't overplay his hand, preferring to let a gentle sense of calm pervade proceedings. The end result makes Jules something that resonates with a little more feeling and emotion than perhaps initially would have been thought, and has a great deal of empathy for both its subjects and its subject matter.