DVD: Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same

With a title like this, you know you’re getting something different. Madeleine Olnek’s first feature is a quirky love story set in her native New York, which is portrayed with enchanting zaniness. Where else would you expect the arrival of female space aliens, with bald heads and distinctive collared costumes (to hide their gills, since you ask) to pass unnoticed?

Welcome to Olnek’s micro-budget, stylish black-and-white world that revels in its Fifties B movie sci-fi ancestry, complete with juddery spacecraft.

Homely Jane works in a stationery store that gives new definitions to banality, until Zoinx (Susan Zeigler) drops by to give her a love-card. Aside from their monotone voices, inhabitants of planet Zots have the disconcerting habit of taking everything literally (a robotic "ha-ha-ha!" their response to humour). Zoinx is one of three sent to Earth to have their hearts broken, given that big feelings like love are destroying the ozone layer back home. The other two, the “sexually generous” Zylar and Barr, fare less well. Zylar turns promiscuous, relishing her blog and a dating-show appearance. Their best attempt at inducing sadness together comes from cheesecake (“the balletic indifference of the revolving desert tray” is just one of the great one-liners in this movie). Olnek sends up everyday life and the rituals of lesbian dating, where emotions can be just so unwieldy. (For no reason we can guess there’s a couple of federal agents shadowing Jane, who give a new meaning to empty, absurdist dialogue).

Lensing from Nat Bouman is lovely - city scenes by day and night full of downbeat life just happening that Jim Jarmusch would enjoy - while Clay Drinko’s rough-and-tumble score resounds accordingly. Why leave it all behind on a spaceship – except for love? Alien to Jane: “She will be rejected on our planet, a freak and an oddity.” Jane to Alien: “If it’s any interest, I never did that well here.” You get the picture…

Watch the trailer to Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same