Seidel can’t quite write his way around the budgetary-constraint challenge of the expected all-out government response to Mann, dispensing with it in a couple of spoken lines. However, his affection for this collection of misfits keeps foremost the resolution of their conflicts and the larger question of the alien’s presence on Earth. It’s a journey driven by emotion, not action, and one that becomes ever more involved with the search for self-purpose, the pain of artistic frustration, the hardship of eldercare, the upholding of family legacy, and the urgency of climate change among the varied thematic paths intersecting en route.
Grillo (of the noted indie dramas Fly Away and Jack of the Red Hearts) fosters a thoughtful, connected ease within her ensemble, delivering intimate staging and evoking excellent performances all around. She and her technical team orchestrate convincing period art direction, the paces of photogenic animal performers, and atmospheric location work in the funky, seemingly frozen-in-time desert town of Truth or Consequences in south-central New Mexico. In addition to Seidel, Grillo finds a game collaborator in director of photography Sarah Brandes, who won the Best Cinematography Award with the film’s premiere at The Santa Fe Film Festival.
“The visuals make the most of the setting’s enigmatic mountain backdrops…”
The camera work, always stylishly framed, fluidly moves, or hovers omnisciently overhead. The visuals make the most of the setting’s enigmatic mountain backdrops, alternately moody and gorgeous skies, and eclectic midcentury architecture, producing the luminous and polished look of a feature costing several dozen times as much. They are enhanced by an eclectic soundtrack incorporating western, Mexican, and Native American tones along with melodic whistling and humming.
The modest special effects required by The Warm Season are relegated to the beginning and end, where they serve efficiently and distract minimally. That’s exactly as it should be in this tale, which, ultimately, is more about the human condition than the prospect of life beyond this glowing blue rock we call home.
The Warm Season premiered simultaneously at the 2023 Santa Fe Film Festival and 2023 Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival, where it won the Festival Director’s Award.
"…more about the human condition than the prospect of life beyond this glowing blue rock..."
