First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes…a planetary apocalypse forcing you and your alien soulmate to invade the Earth and possess bodies you don’t understand? Sure, why not.
In Zach Clark’s wonderfully weird “The Becomers,” alien terror collides with a cascading case of mistaken identity. When two genderless extraterrestrials crash-land in different parts of Illinois, they must covertly assimilate through a revolving door of skin-suits before finding each other’s new forms. Clark’s latest is more candy-tart than saccharine-sweet — but for those unfamiliar with his out-there style, this electric portrait of doomsday-defying love serves as a ready-made soft spot for the indie filmmaker.
“The Becomers” writer/director/editor is already known for painting in seriocomic shades thanks to movies like “Little Sister” and “White Reindeer.” He’s exploring themes of complex grief again here, but this time it’s through the lens of a loss so seismic it demands to be processed both alone and as a couple. The scared-but-still-smitten aliens (known heretofore as Lover 1 and Lover 2 for the purposes of this review) spend the first third of the film apart. That proves essential to the sharp flecks of sci-fi melancholia that give this ultimately imperfect horror-comedy enough special sauce to still enjoy.
When a hunter (Conrad Dean) investigates a plume of purple smoke in the woods outside Chicago, he stumbles away acting not at all like himself. Slouched and wearing a pair of upside-down sunglasses, this thing that turns out to be Lover 1 can barely walk — let alone speak — in their first disguise. A pregnant woman named Francesca (Isabel Alamin) is giving birth in the back of a car parked up the road. The stranded mom-to-be’s pleas are answered by the amoral bystander, who swiftly enacts a brutal murder and a second body-snatch. (Don’t ask what happens to the baby.)
Courtesy Dark Star Pictures
Simultaneously, an unseen narrator (Russell Mael) explains the love story that brought us here. The lovers met on a blind date. The couple didn’t, ahem, “conjoin” that first night, but soon after, they met up again and did. Sure, one of them was a well-known ceramics artist showing at galleries across the planet — and yes, the other was a frustrated factory worker doing something at the “Gamma Center” with “pulse colliders.” But even juggling their competing careers and practicing ethical non-monogamy (ok, progressive!), the alien sweethearts have stayed together ever since. Well, until now.
Where do you go when you don’t know who you are? Safe inside a Motel 6, Lover 1 doggedly learns the English language by repeating what’s said on TV. You’ll recognize that done-to-death idea from countless other movies and shows, but Clark makes it feel fresh with a broadcast news send-up that tasks his actress with both sides of a partisan debate. Lover 1 is also figuring out feeding and dressing their new body. They’ll need to buy human clothes as well as colored contacts — their eyes are neon-blue and their partner’s glow fuchsia — all while evading the increasingly creepy advances of motel manager Gene (Frank V. Ross).
Courtesy Dark Star Pictures
Even incognito as the so-called Francesca, Lover 1 and Gene don’t have much in common. Gene is willing to throw everything away to be with a person he’s barely talked to, but that’s because he is as lost as his alien crush. A sorrowful sense of anonymity unites almost all characters in “The Becomers,” which was filmed in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic and makes clever if unavoidable use of face masks. When it comes to long-term romantic relationships, personal identity can be hard to protect. That’s true of any species susceptible to commitment, but with Lover 2 nowhere in sight, Lover 1 is forced to define their new personality within the confusing confines of some deeply fractured American values.
That pulsing political current pushes the action forward and a chance encounter in a Home Depot parking lot sees Lover 1 slough off Francesca to become Carol (Molly Plunk). The consequences of that choice are unforeseeable to the alien and only begin with the problematic revelation that Carol has a husband waiting for her at home. Stressed out and cryptic about why, Gordon (Mike Lopez) steadfastly steers the plot toward its satirical endgame — but with Lover 2 finally appearing as a city bus driver formerly known as Debbie (Jacquelyn Haas), he might not stay Gordon for much longer. Is Lover 2 ready for that change? What about Lover 1?
Courtesy Dark Star Pictures
“The Becomers” thrives when it keeps the focus on the aliens’ intimacy. The sex scenes are hammed up to outrageous effect (“I missed your orifice,” the lovers moan in tandem), but just watching the duo shop for groceries and wave off suspicious neighbors is delightful. As their precarious situation grows more complicated, Clark’s obvious love last century’s sci-fi classics — think both versions of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” but also the zanier “They Live” — merges with a more contemporary rom-com formula. You’ll recognize the normal-couple-thrust-into-criminal-activity schtick from Netflix’s own pandemic-era rom-com, “The Lovebirds,” as well as 2010’s “Date Night,” starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey.
That combination mostly works, which is dazzling when you consider what little time many of these actors had to establish iterative versions of one relationship. “You Won’t Be Alone,” written and directed by Goran Stolevski, took a similar idea by way of a witchy Macedonian folktale in 2022 — and while that film is objectively better, the shapeshifting here is more impressive when measured as a team effort with fewer resources. Clark keeps everyone on the same page, even as the two main roles are continuously recast and the surprise addition of a key character (Keith Kelly) shakes things up even more.
“The Becomers” loses its way when Clark starts searching for a political message he can’t pin down. A series of sharp comedic inclines promises a pay-off to the ever-crazier rising action that doesn’t arrive, even as the body-snatching elements get more gruesome. Lover 1 and Lover 2 find themselves stuck in some sensationally high-pressure scenarios and their inability to lie their way through those moments is earnestly funny. In the end though, Clark can’t figure out what he wants to say about the state of the country or the world, and the lessons the lovers’ take away from their experiences suffer for it.
Courtesy Dark Star Pictures
An overly hasty story wrap-up ends with a charming dedication — “FOR JEN” — and the film’s heart makes it out alive. Micro-budget movies like this one face extraordinary limitations at every turn and what this interstellar mess-around misses in the big picture it offsets with the little things. Clark may have been going for something more profound than the us-versus-the-universe ending he achieves, but the filmmaker’s means of getting there display his broader world-building talents well. (Keep your ears perked for a solid joke that’s sort of about Florida, but mainly about people who just won’t listen.)
Describing a home planet the audience never gets to see, “The Becomers” feels like a lockdown death rattle for good and bad. It reflects not only how far we’ve come since this singular piece of oddball cinema was shot, but also how far we still have to go in understanding why and how that tragic time changed us as people. Clark maintains his admirable devotion to humanity’s messiest emotional crises in his sixth film and that’s something worth applauding. He knows who he is — and not every artist is secure enough to ask a question so daring as: What will we become?
Grade: B-
From Dark Star Pictures, “The Becomers” premieres in theaters August 23 in New York at Cinema Village. It will be in Los Angeles on August 30 at Lumiere Music Hall, and in Chicago on September 13 at Music Box Theatre. The film hits VOD on September 24.
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