Renee (Lulu Wilson) lives in an isolated home in New Mexico with little oversight from a responsible adult, i.e. her mother, Linda (Wrenn Schmidt), who is too absorbed with her alcoholic, abusive boyfriend, Chase (Paul Schneider). With a fondness for amphibians, reptiles and arachnids, during Renee’s late-night escape from her increasingly dangerous home, she crosses paths with an alien creature, who initially frightens her. Once she realizes the alien is hurt, they become bonded together, but believing the alien to be dangerous, CIA field agent Jonathan Keyes (Omari Hardwick) is determined to find and kill her, but this alien, whom Renee names Croak (Garrett van der Leun) will kill, and Renee may not mind given the circumstances. Despite the similarities, “Xeno” (2025) is no “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) and is a solid entertaining movie with enough bite to make the stakes feel high.
If Wilson looks familiar, you may recognize her from her days of playing a homicidal teen in the “Becky” franchise, but here she is just a normal kid with an unusual taste in animals. Wilson can carry the movie and not alienate audiences when her character does dumb things because she is a kid. Fifteen-year-old Renee may be the only adult in the house. When she is not busy making sure that her mom is taking care of herself, she must deal with escalating aggression from Chase. At school, she is a loner since kids laugh at her for being smart and the new kid. Math whiz Gil (Trae Romano) is willing to be friends, but her instinct is to isolate and avoid scrutiny, which serves her well when she meets Croak. Because Renee is sensitive to nontraditionally cute animals, she sees Croak as she is, not just through a lens of fear.
Croak is not having a good time on Earth. Everytime she crosses a person’s path, they hurt her, and she hurts back. Like Renee, who does her best to stand her ground and face off against Curtis, the returns are diminishing. Though formidable, it is rough to see her take so many brutal hits, and she is injured and trapped when Renee arrives. Once Renee shows her kindness, Croak is ride-or-die team Renee. Croak is all teeth and slobber like an alien dog, but she is also dangerous so Renee’s decision to care for Croak does not solve any of Croak’s problems for long, just delays them. Somehow with Renee, Croak is cute, and if “Xeno” is impressive, it shows this frightening character to the audience in the way that Renee sees her. Also. it clearly delineates how Renee’s choice to hide the alien is right and wrong without pulling punches. Croak nonverbally makes a clear statement to Renee that she is her own person with a separate set of rules and morality that Renee cannot change. It also makes for a satisfying, cathartic moment or two when Croak decides to go ham.
Gil is the most real character in the world. While he is willing to keep a secret, he also sees Croak clearly in a way that Renee and the feds cannot. He is the only voice of a reason in a movie where the adults are operating without any logic or reasonableness without being devoid of compassion. Also thank you writer and director Matthew Loren Oates for not also using him as a love interest, which would have been the worst direction to take “Xeno” considering everything that is happening in her mother’s life. A lesser movie would have pulled that crap. He is barely a friend, but he could be.
Hardwick is such a good actor. Though rated PG-13, “Xeno” conveyed that Kevin was capable of anything, and without any prose dumping, Hardwick’s backstory is easily guessed and palpable. Kevin is a zealot, but evil, not evil. There are not many movies that would let a character do what Kevin did without the movie descending into a pit that it could never recover from. Kevin is not cartoon big bad. He is a guy that feels ripped from the headlines, especially now, which is what grounds this movie. It is also a clever diplomatic move without punking out to have Kevin point out that the government is made of a lot of people, so the result depends on the person in the position at the time. Kevin is an outlier who is probably on the verge of getting reported but has managed to avoid triggering any serious repercussions thanks to a few factors such as his colleagues showing him the empathy that Renee shows Croak.
“Xeno” nails presenting how children are subject to larger forces that endanger them. Many of those individuals and institutions not only fail to uphold their duties to care and protect them, but actively harm them. Instead, a homicidal alien becomes her only reliable protector, and Renee reciprocates. It is a heartbreaking story because it does not look like the alien can go home, and they clearly cannot be together. Stay for the credits to find out more about where the movie lands. Also the adults are not just two-dimensional villains though Chase is close to it. Even he gets a backstory monologue disguised as a menacing speech. A lot of Renee and Croak’s suffering stems from unhealed kids cosplaying as adults. A lot of time is devoted to explaining why Linda is so negligent then rehabilitating her. The end lesson is that the adults conflate fear with respect and safety yet do not notice that they fear Croak without respecting her, and Croak is far from safe. It is a cycle of unhelpful responses that only Croak and Renee learn how to break when they see fear as hurt and respond accordingly.
I watched a screener that could only play on a computer, and it was hard to see the nighttime scenes, but what I could see seemed beautiful, which is one reason to see it in theaters where it will probably look more impressive since it does not translate as well on small screens. “Xeno” was shot in New Mexico, and Oates seemed to capture the rough, desolate beauty of the area. Indie alien movies do not have big budgets, but Croak looked terrifying, not goofy or like a man in a suit. The fight scenes are not made to titillate, but are impressive and satisfying nevertheless. One scene showed Renee encouraging a wounded, hungry and exhausted Croak to run so she could hustle her to safety. Afterwards Croak races to get to Renee’s side, and it is Croak’s emotional bond, not ferocity, which drives the momentum of the film. Croak is pushing herself because she knows that Renee is in more danger than Renee realizes and understands the coldness of this world more than the human girl.
“Xeno” is a surprisingly good movie. So many movies are inconsistent at some point in the script or offer paper thin characters that do not live up to their potential. This movie is kind of darling in a rough, violent way about two wounded creatures who decide to make sure that no one wounds the other again. Of course, Renee winds up with the better deal, but so does the audience. If you are reluctant to see this movie because you are worried that you are going to cry or that it is going to be too schmaltzy, rest assured that Oates balances the sour and sweet and knows how to give us what we want and need. No sophomore slump for Oates.
