Sometimes it’s a good thing to go into a film knowing as little as possible about what you’re watching. I didn’t know anything about Jules except that  Sir Ben Kingsley was in it but that’s it. What I got out of it at the end was a sweet family film about finding a purpose in life even if it’s not what you expected it to be. And building a friendship no one thought would come of a situation they didn’t see coming in the first place. That’s what you get with this movie.

Milton (Ben Kingsley) is an elderly gentleman who goes for walks, watches his CSI, and occasionally makes an appearance at the local city council meetings to voice his grievances about the city motto and a dangerous intersection between two streets. He’s not the only one who attends the meeting either. He has a couple of kids and one of them is his daughter Denise (Zoey Winters) who helps him with some of his day-to-day things around the house. 

His life gets a crazy turn one day when he notices a flying saucer lands in his backyard and destroys his Azalea’s. And an alien lifeform comes out of the said saucer. He tries to help the alien he calls Jules with the help of his two nosey neighbors Sandy (Harriet Sansom Harris and Joyce (Jane Curtain).  They tried to figure out what this alien needed but the government is fast on their heels and they don’t have much time before they are found out. This becomes a race against time to save this alien from another world.

This little film at first glance would seem like a throwaway. There isn’t much meat on the bone here but the filmmaker Marc Turtletaub and the screener Gavin Strckler handle this material perfectly. They completely understand the world they have created within the context of the film. It’s set in a real world very similar to ours so it’s not hard to imagine this can happen in a small rural Pennsylvania town. It’s how the main characters deal with the situation that makes it a fun film. 

Films featuring alien species have been around for decades now. When the Earth Stood Still, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET the Extra-Terrestrial have shown how these types of films can have a positive outlook, and The Thing, Alien/Aliens, and War of the Worlds and Predator have shown how these types of creatures can be used in a scary way on film. Jules is a little bit closer to the first grouping I mentioned. It is a cute look at this tried and true subject matter. 

The alien in Jules is played by Jade Quon. She pretty much plays this character mute but hand gestures and little drawing help the main trio discover what this little alien needs. They get it to watch television with them and find out it eats apples and enjoys their company. The inevitable happens and this cute little alien must inevitably go home. And that’s sad but this provided a fun hour and a half distraction from life. Quon was quite good in the role. Her eyes and hands spoke a lot about what this little guy was trying to get across. 

Jules is a fun little film with a cast that is enjoying themselves doing what they are doing in this movie. It’s not trying to be anything more than what it is and it’s good at that. The direction and story are fine and there is a little emotion thrown in for good measure. This won’t be considered the greatest alien film of all time but it is a cute funny one that may elicit a tear or two. I very much enjoyed this little film and it’s good to go into movies sometimes without any knowledge of what you’re going to see.

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen