Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Wyatt Rockefeller
Starring: Sofia Boutella, Brooklynn Prince, Jonny Lee Miller, Ismael Cruz Cordova,
Nell Tiger Free
In Wyatt Rockefeller's directorial debut Settlers, South Africa stands in for Mars, which stands in for any frontier you
might wish to compare it to. It's some point in the future, and the Red
Planet has seemingly been colonised in the sparse manner of America's Old
West.
A family of three – Reza (Jonny Lee Miller), Ilsa (Sofia Boutella) and their young daughter Remmy (Brooklynn Prince) – lives a
lonely existence on a farm that has been set up to provide their basic
needs, including it seems, oxygen, with no masks required to walk around
the Martian terrain.
One morning our Swiss Family Robinson on Mars awaken to find the word
"Leave" scrawled in large letters on their window. Turns out this farm
doesn't belong to them, and the rightful heir, Jerry (Ismael Cruz Cordova), whom they sent packing into the desert as a boy, has returned to claim
his family's property.
Forced to kill Reza, Jerry makes a pact with Ilsa and Remmy. They can stay
on the farm if they promise not to bother him. He won’t cause them any
harm, and he'll even protect them.
Protect them from what exactly becomes the key question. Just what is beyond the
farm's borders is one of several ambiguities that go frustratingly
unanswered. The South African desert sure looks like how we might imagine
the landscape of the Red Planet, and Rockefeller and cinematographer
Willie Nel give us compositions straight out of 1950s sci-fi
magazines. But the greater world never feels convincing here. One would
assume if Mars is to be colonised it will be Earth's aristocracy who get a
ticket to the planet. None of the characters here seem to fall into that
category, so are we to believe that rather than say, colonial Kenya with
its rich British settlers, the Mars posited here is akin to colonial
Australia, essentially a prison planet? The second option seems most
likely but no clues are offered either way.
Once Jerry shows up the movie plays a lot like those many post-apocalyptic
sci-fi movies where the last man and woman left on the planet contend with
the darker urges of human nature. Ilsa acquiesces quickly to Jerry's
pawing demands, suggesting she's doing so either to protect her daughter
or because Jerry is offering something her husband wasn't providing. Or
was Reza just another Jerry she eventually got used to? Again, no answer
is forthcoming.
Settlers isn't quite gritty enough to fully wallow in its
dynamic of lingering sexual threat. A philosophical conundrum of whether a
woman should be burdened with continuing the survival of the human species
is brought up but quickly moved on from. Jerry never seems quite as
ruthless as he should be. Surprisingly, the one thing that the movie isn't
ambiguous about is his villainy. Any suggestion that he is to be the
film's anti-hero is dismissed as soon as his hands find their way onto his
new female companion's flesh.
Along with the South African landscape, much of the heavy lifting is done
here by Prince, whom you might remember as the kid from
The Florida Project. Like one of those kids from classic westerns like Shane, her Remmy learns a lot about adulthood through the arrival of this
stranger from the plains. Prince's eyes go a long way to filling in some
of the blanks here, but ultimately there are a few too many blanks left
gaping by the film's end.
Settlers is in US cinemas and VOD
from July 23, UK cinemas and VOD from July 30th.
