Jules (film): Surprisingly delightful

I suppose saying that it is surprising that a film starring Ben Kingsley and Jane Curtin would be good is kind of a silly thing to say because those two are so incredible. I guess I was just hesitant to watch this because it was listed as a comedy and that isn't really Kingsley's forte. It was late and I was bored so I clicked on it anyway and I wasn't at all disappointed.

The plot points that I am going to point out are not spoilers and they are prominently featured in the trailer so don't accuse me of ruining the experience for you.

However, if you like to go into good films completely blind, then stop reading this now and just know that I think this is an excellent film and one of the better ones that I have watched recently.

Ben Kingsley plays the starring role of "Milton" who is an aging man living a mundane life in small town in Pennsylvania. He does things that you would expect someone who is a widower living in a sleepy town would do such as walk around a lot and attend weekly city council meetings to demand time and time again that they put in crosswalks at various intersections.

He isn't a grumpy old man by any means but he is comfortable living his routine life and mostly just wants people to leave him alone. I see a lot of myself in this character as I get older and I think most people can also.

Milton has a daughter that lives in the same town as him and she does a lot of things for him including getting on his nerves questioning his mental capacity when she comes over and sees that he has forgotten certain things in his life or starts showing signs of early dementia. Milton carries on with his day-to-day until one night something crashes in his backyard. A UFO crashes into his backyard.

He reacts to this like most of us would in that he kind of freaks out and tries to call people such as the police who do not believe what he is saying because he is old and considered to be a bit of a town "kook."

When he announces this event at the next city council meeting once again he is not believed by anyone since they all kind of think the same thing about a guy that has been coming there for years talking about crosswalks at the same intersection every week. So he just leaves it be and goes on with his life.

Eventually he figures out that the alien in his backyard means him no harm and he helps to nurse it back to health by figuring out what it likes to eat and by beginning to communicate through pictures with "him" (the alien). They calmly have one-way conversations where the alien never speaks and it is presumed that the alien doesn't understand him either.

So in that regard I like the idea of this sort of alien. It is just a traveler who got stuck and isn't there to destroy the planet or anything crazy like that.

I'll leave the story at that. The story is very touching and says a lot about human kindness and how we could use a lot more of that in our own day-to-day lives. It also touches base on the sadness of getting older and accepting our own mortality as well as the importance of family - which is something that I think a lot of us take for granted in our own lives. Strangely enough, after you watch this film you may likely end up like me and feel as though a phone call or two to your relatives are in order after you see this. I got misty-eyed from near tears on a couple of instances and that says a lot when a movie is about some aliens in an old man's backyard.

Should I watch it?

This was a real surprise to me. I was tired and in bed and I still made it all the way through it because it was that entertaining. I found out that this film never saw a widespread release which kind of shocked me because they never even really tried to get this one out there. I don't know what their budget was but it only made 1.9 million at the box office, which was almost certainly less than the production budget. It has mostly glowing reviews on the major review websites and to me it just doesn't make sense that they never tried to get this out there to the masses. I loved it and I think you will as well.