It's a comedy set in modern times in a fictional town near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It follows the experiences of three septuagenarians who encounter an alien from space whose spaceship has crashed in a backyard.
Milton Robinson (Ben Kingsley) is a 78-year-old widower living alone in his big house. He's starting to have memory problems but is fiercely independent. His daughter, Denise (Zoë Winters), is a local veterinarian who looks after Milton's finances and worries about his living independently. He is alienated from his son, Tim, who lives in California. Milton is a regular at city council meetings where he repeatedly brings up the same issues--changing the town's motto and the need for a crosswalk on a street with a long distance between intersections. Two older women also speak repeatedly at council meetings. Sandy (Harriet Sansom Harris) is only 72, but her husband has died of Alzheimer's. She is outgoing and has notions about new social programs. Joyce (Jane Curtin) is more acerbic and distrustful.
One night, a spaceship crashes in Milton's azalea flower garden. He mentions this in various contexts but is blown off as a senile old man. An injured alien (Jade Quon) emerges from the spaceship a few days later. First, Milton cares for him, and Sandy and Joyce gradually get involved. The alien never speaks but has empathetic eyes that lead all of them to treat the alien as a therapist. Milton and Sandy call the alien Jules, and Joyce calls him Gary.
The film follows their efforts to keep Jules a secret while s/he fixes the spaceship, and the National Security Agency desperately looks for the foreign body it saw descending to Earth but cannot find. We learn the alien's dietary requirements and discover yet another gift cats possess.
I really enjoyed "Jules" and chuckled often. Seniors will identify with many of the lived experiences of older people dismissed as irrelevant by younger generations. It may prove less funny to younger people. Kingsley, Harris, Curtin, and Quon are all excellent. The plot is not meant to be believable, so who cares about no one bothering to look in Milton's backyard.
Milton Robinson (Ben Kingsley) is a 78-year-old widower living alone in his big house. He's starting to have memory problems but is fiercely independent. His daughter, Denise (Zoë Winters), is a local veterinarian who looks after Milton's finances and worries about his living independently. He is alienated from his son, Tim, who lives in California. Milton is a regular at city council meetings where he repeatedly brings up the same issues--changing the town's motto and the need for a crosswalk on a street with a long distance between intersections. Two older women also speak repeatedly at council meetings. Sandy (Harriet Sansom Harris) is only 72, but her husband has died of Alzheimer's. She is outgoing and has notions about new social programs. Joyce (Jane Curtin) is more acerbic and distrustful.
One night, a spaceship crashes in Milton's azalea flower garden. He mentions this in various contexts but is blown off as a senile old man. An injured alien (Jade Quon) emerges from the spaceship a few days later. First, Milton cares for him, and Sandy and Joyce gradually get involved. The alien never speaks but has empathetic eyes that lead all of them to treat the alien as a therapist. Milton and Sandy call the alien Jules, and Joyce calls him Gary.
The film follows their efforts to keep Jules a secret while s/he fixes the spaceship, and the National Security Agency desperately looks for the foreign body it saw descending to Earth but cannot find. We learn the alien's dietary requirements and discover yet another gift cats possess.
I really enjoyed "Jules" and chuckled often. Seniors will identify with many of the lived experiences of older people dismissed as irrelevant by younger generations. It may prove less funny to younger people. Kingsley, Harris, Curtin, and Quon are all excellent. The plot is not meant to be believable, so who cares about no one bothering to look in Milton's backyard.