Bakewell makes the brilliant move to play out in real time all the scenes the audience wants to be there for. We are there with the family on the night the nukes rain down. We get to be there in the desert, looking up in the sky at the glowing flying saucer slowly closing in. Bakewell has an ingenious intuition for knowing what parts of his story the audience wants to get close up on, so we are always in on the ground action.
The alternate 80s timeline also allows Bakewell all the liberty in the galaxy to create his post-nuke 20th-century world as he sees fit. This includes moving the town of Roswell from New Mexico to Nevada, as in this timeline, the UFO crash site and where the feds stored it are in the same place. There is also a lot of fast and loose play with 80s pop culture references, which, while fun, are put in a blender and presented out of order. However, it is an alternate timeline after all, so the filmmaker really can do anything he wants to. This is Bakewell’s party, so put on the pointy hat and get down.
“…some of the most ambitious world-building ever seen in an indie feature…”
I was drawn to Roswell Delirium by the impressive special guest star roster Bakewell assembled. Producer Anthony Michael Hall maintains that overall warmth with the underlying trace of sinister that he does so well. Wallace blows the doors off the barn with a heartbreaking turn as the desperate grandmother. Whelchel is given her meatiest role in years, which she completely triumphs in. A lot of us who grew up with her on TV will be shocked as to how well she reenacts possibly one of the most traumatic experiences Generation X went through.
The biggest stars are the two female leads, Levien and Bodenhausen. Bodenhausen is incredible; we need to see her in lots of productions right now. Levien is a stupendous young actress, putting in a level of work worthy of Stand By Me. The story incorporates parallels to the pandemic with the coughing fit disease left behind by the radioactive fallout in a very unusual way. Instead of making the movie a COVID allegory or providing commentary over the topic of disease, Bakewell uses the lockdown restrictions as a way to get the younger audiences to identify with a “day after” that would happen before they were born. It goes very dark at the end, putting this excellent movie in the same cult territory as Donnie Darko. Roswell Delirium shows the world another final frontier that only an indie can take you to. Hitch a ride with this movie immediately.
"…excellent movie in the same cult territory as Donnie Darko"
