Jules (2023)

We loved this story about an elderly man caring for an alien whose spaceship has crashed into his small town back yard. Funny and touching, it features Ben Kingsley, Harriet Sansom Harris, Jane Curtin, Zoe Winters as his daughter, and Jade Quon, in four hours a day of makeup and prosthetics, as the alien.

The amiable pace is thanks to director Marc Turtletaub and writer Gavin Steckler. And I'm streaming the original score by Volker Bertelmann on Apple Music as I type.

Every synopsis calls it Boonton, Pennsylvania, but indb says it was actually shot in Paterson and Boonton, New Jersey. Go figure.

Kingsley was last blogged for The Jungle Book, Curtin for Queen Bees, Turtletaub for directing Puzzle (but I have yet to mention his distinguished producing credits, including indie darlings Everything Is Illuminated (2005), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Sunshine Cleaning, Away We Go, Jack Goes Boating, Safety Not Guaranteed, Loving, The Farewell, and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), and Bertelmann for Downhill. Harris looked familiar to me, perhaps because her many credits include Nurse Betty (2000), 28 episodes of Desperate Housewives, and eleven of Frasier. Fans of the series Succession will recognize Winters with her signature brunette long hair and bangs. Quon has done some acting and over a hundred stunt and stunt double jobs. This is Steckler's feature screenwriting debut.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are phoning home with good reviews, averaging 84 and 90%. Jack and I rented it on November 2.