And now for the movie in which Gillian Anderson helps investigate a government cover-up of flying saucers … yet doesn’t play an FBI agent!
Rumors of a UFO sighting at a nearby airport fire up Derek (Alex Sharp, How to Talk to Girls at Parties), a brilliant University of Cincinnati student who witnessed such a close encounter as a wee lad. What the feds deny, the socially awkward genius obsesses over trying to prove … using math! Naturally, he thinks exposing the truth is more important than paying attention to the one female who shows interest in him — despite her being Ella Purnell (TV’s Fallout), out of his league by a good 20,000 of them.
Imagine Roy Neary crunching numbers instead of mashing taters, and you’re vibing with the sober tone of Ryan Eslinger’s procedural. Despite math running front and center throughout UFO’s plotting, knowing it as a viewer matters not an iota, so you can enjoy the conspiracy thriller aspect of it all, no matter your GPA. (That said, if you’ve waited decades for the fine-structure constant to get its due onscreen, holy crap, are you in for a treat!)
Anderson, whose mere presence brings The X-Files to mind whether she likes it or not, fills the supporting role of Derek’s professor. Rather than the usual rah-rah feel-good mentor the movies usually turn educators into, she can barely tolerate Derek. He is less than appealing, which is perhaps part of Eslinger’s intent in not following usual sci-fi tropes. No little green men here — just lanky, pasty-white ones. You may even want the FBI, led by the always fine David Strathairn (L.A. Confidential), to catch the meddling kid.
UFO is nothing to phone home about, but it’s a solid surprise, good for one watch. Eslinger — whose first film, Madness and Genius, also dealt in equations — does a more than credible job of making an unbelievable tale seem as though it’s based on true events. (Psst: It is!) —Rod Lott