At First Light is promoted as if it is about Alex, a girl who gets powers after an encounter with a mysterious light, but it is a bait and switch. It is about a nice guy™ who used to be in a relationship with said girl, but became distant and isolated when his family drama dominated his life. After her encounter, he gets a second chance to be with her, and he will not give up this opportunity regardless of the consequences.
At First Light-come for the alien powers, wish that you never came for the teen romance. This movie suffers from the ninety-minute curse and feels as if it is never going to end. If the movie was more upfront about its story, I would have never watched it. It is really a movie about emotionally letting go of the past, particularly lost love, and appreciating what you had so you can live fully going forward. I am certain that the girl does not mind having to basically upend her life so he could learn this lesson and not constantly be reminded of what he lost by seeing her live her normal life daily. Sure she had to lose all her memories, including his past neglect, to choose him to hang out with, but c’est la vie. Thanks, aliens!
I hate At First Light for a variety of reasons. The ex-boyfriend, Sean, is the least interesting character in the story. I do not care how many quotidian family tragedies you dump on his shoulders. I am currently forty-five, and I am beginning to get tired of the teen with powers trope or any teen for that matter, especially since the teens that most movies focus on are of the dumb variety, and before you say or think it, not all teens are dumb. Literally anyone else would have been a better protagonist. The instinctual choice is the teen girl, but then there would be no one to prose dump on while she is doing something in the other room. We live in a world of HIPAA and people not wanting to give an individual information owed to them, but experts are giving a random, unwashed teen boy info instead of the girl with powers because she is doing something in the other room. It is just lazy storytelling, and a teeny bit sexist. I suppose that I should just be grateful that she looks normal for the majority of the film instead of glammed up.
At First Light had plenty of other choices. What about Cal, the ex-government official who has been monitoring the phenomenon or Kate, whom Kate Burton, the VP from Scandal plays, the government official who was Cal’s colleague. They are underwritten, purely functional characters, but the actors bring more to their roles just by existing. The idea of Cal choosing to live in Nevada during Presidon’t’s administration already tells us volumes. How about the stepmom? Side note: that marriage is going to end in divorce. Imagine that your step-daughter who hates you goes missing, but your husband has to go to work anyway and leaves you to figure out what happened to her then she appears and disappears with some boy. I want to watch that movie. Stepmom is big mad and did not sign up for any of this madness. I would have even chosen grandma, one of the two nice waitresses even the real boyfriend who sucks in a benign, passive Chappaquiddick way, but again, dumb teen who does not know what is going on so forgivable.
Instead I get aliens who are the equivalent of Sean’s fairy godmother who solve most of his home problems and fix all of his regrets. The movie definitely used the prose dump to keep us from realizing that these were the lamest aliens ever, and that part of the plot was going nowhere. I actually wonder if the filmmaker was using aliens as a substitute for God, and if it was not a thinly disguised Christian produced film, especially after Alex makes a casual remark about getting a Sumerian tattoo of John 14:6. I love a random veiled reference to Jesus, but are teens doing this? Also her encounter with aliens echoes baptism imagery. I’m probably giving the filmmakers more credit than they deserve. They just want to communicate with us and existed before the Big Bang. Ugh. Touched by An Angel did it better.
At First Light forgot to add the line, “God loves you.” Or maybe He just loves Sean because this movie does not have a universal message for everyone unless the filmmaker believes that Sean’s story is rich enough for every viewer to derive meaning from his resolution, which I absolutely did not. He graduated from high school, no longer has responsibilities, experienced transcendence and is skateboarding with his little brother while giving people the finger. My dude, I know that college is a scam, and time spent with family is never wasted, but for real? OK, I guess, but at least the disciples went fishing and had group feasts after hanging out with Jesus and experiencing miracles. Also have a shower and occasionally wash your face. Living in poverty does not mean that people look dirty.
If I had to choose one thing to be deeply disappointed in, it was slightly raising my hopes that at least this film would at least resonate as a reflection of a specific American era with radio references to Presidon’t and the crackdown on undocumented people, but it was nothing more than a wink at the alien theme. Given the opportunity to at least depict the struggle of being an American when the government has completely abnegated any responsibility to provide a safety net for its most vulnerable population, At First Light assiduously avoids any deeper meaning other than pawning jewelry at a convenience store (is that a thing) or rundown cars. How do you have pizza and prescription drug money?
Also how are we still making films like At First Light about a competent, speedy government response to an existential event during Presidon’t’s administration? Forget a cover up. If there was a radiation danger, would not they want her running around the community longer to create a spectacle or endanger more people’s lives? Should not the scientists be battling politically motivated bureaucrats to do the responsible thing? It is time for sci fi to revise the tropes to reflect reality. Incompetence should be center stage. These filmmakers are still living in the seventies when we believed that people lived and breathed their jobs, and we could have some faith. Stop copying Close Encounters of the Third Kind!
At First Light does not work on any level: not as an indie, intimate story about average people, not as a sci fi thriller, not as a grander commentary about our country in this era. If I was forced to compliment this film, it is beautifully shot when just focused on wider shots as aliens pass through as long as no characters are in the shot. I suppose that if you are a teenage boy or a middle aged man still fantasizing about the girl that you let get away decades ago, this film will make you weep, and you will consider it a masterpiece, but for the rest of us, you deserve better.
