Even a cursory glance at the current state of the world around us hints at a level of ruin and decay that is, in some ways, entirely unprecedented. The land is both freezing and in flames. People are finding reasons to hate each other instead of building community. Elected officials are actively choosing to serve their own self interests. In short, it feels like we’re watching the world die around us, with very little to grasp onto for hope or meaning.
There is one thing that lasts, though. As long as we exist to leave our marks behind, there is art. Art to make meaning out of the mess. Art to bring light to the dark. Art to remind us of the necessity of our connective tissue to one another above all else. How vital it is that we know we are not alone.
Writer-director Zach Clark’s latest, THE BECOMERS, is an understated, unusual love letter to this hungry, needful drive toward connection amid a bizarre and dying world. Two aliens—whose race survives by body swapping with others—find themselves stranded on Earth after having escaped their own dying world. They found one another and fell in love only to be separated upon their escape and thrust to different areas of their new surroundings, consuming and possessing others to survive while they tirelessly sought one another again. They do not much visibly emote—they in fact have eyes that are essentially portals of light that must be covered so they can blend in—but they are incredibly empathetic. The idea that they have to end the life of another being in order to prolong their own quickly becomes an obvious source of stress almost as painful to them as the idea of being separated from one another.
Their sporadic separations are what drive the story forward, however, and it is through the moments of their highest desperations and reconnections that we learn not just the most about them, but perhaps even more about ourselves. It’s clear rather quickly that one of them is somewhat more confident in their adaptability than the other, at least part of the time. The character we predominantly follow for the duration of the film (Molly Plunk, mostly) is the less confident of the two, which makes for a very unique viewing experience, but perhaps also better highlights the stakes. It’s unclear if anything detrimental to their survival will happen if they cannot reconnect with one another, but if they are not able to maintain their frequent re-occupancy of other people, they will assimilate into the species they are currently inhabiting, thereby losing themselves completely.
THE BECOMERS can sometimes feel like an unusually stilted experience. Much of the dialogue comes across as just this side of average cadence. The side characters with whom our shifting central ones interact fluctuate from reserved politeness to bafflement to terror and back again almost with each breath. In that sense, everyone is on an even playing field in the world of cordial communication, provided that field is constantly shifting and virtually impossible to read. What makes the dynamic of how the Becomers survive so interesting, beyond what happens to those they take over and their…unusual mating ritual, is that they do not seem to retain any real memories or knowledge of the people they have taken over, placing them firmly and constantly in a state of flux.
Entertaining for us, unsteady and awkward for them, and all the more revealing for what it means to experience the world writ large. THE BECOMERS is, above all else, a love story. But it is also a story of missed and rekindled connection with those around us even in passing. Sometimes these rekindlings end poorly, but they are intriguing for what they reveal about the people involved. Some of us, when encountered with a change of heart or circumstance, see it as an opportunity to take advantage for our own benefit. Others see an opportunity to break new grounds of mutual understanding. Yet others will be so distrustful as to cower and run in fear. What makes this all the more poignant is many of the people the Becomers become are being inhabited at moments of their lives where it’s clear they have been either exceptionally cruel, isolated, abandoned, or lonesome. Enter these deeply feeling beings, and suddenly no one is quite who they seemed.
Nowhere is this made clearer, perhaps, than with Keith Kelly’s performance as the newly-inhabited Governor Jack Olatka. He is, other than Molly Plunk’s Carol, the body of our main Becomer that we spend the most time with, and the one with the starkest before-and-after. The monologue he delivers toward the film’s end is moving because of everything that has preceded it—including the moral void he’s previously inhabited.
THE BECOMERS is a vulnerable, weird journey through lo-fi storytelling that seems bent on proving to us that there is value in connection with other souls, even and especially at the bleakest moments of our lives. Russell Mael’s closing narration lingers a much needed message of hope across the stars and pixels of our time and screens.
Tags: Dark Star Pictures, Keith Kelly, Molly Plunk, Russell Mael, The Becomers, Zach Clark
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