Movie Review: Settlers

Settlers is a remarkably dull movie. Written and directed by Wyatt Rockefeller, Settlers doesn’t look bad and is not poorly acted. Rather, Settlers fails because there isn’t much of a story going on. The film centers on an innocent young girl on a remote planet with her parents. The story is about how she grew up in this bizarre isolation and how the experience shapes her. Echoes of what it has been like to be a kid during the pandemic and shelter at home orders are intentional. What I am assuming is not intended is how well Settlers captures the unending boredom and navel-gazing of being trapped at home by an unseen potentially deadly force.

Settlers stars Brooklynn Prince as Remmy, the daughter of Reza (Johnny Lee Miller) and Ilsa (Sofia Boutella). The family has taken shelter on what we assume is Mars though they inexplicably have a breathable atmosphere and fertile farming ground. We have no idea how long they’ve been here but we do know they aren’t alone. Unknown scavengers have begun aggressively attacking the outpost. When Reza goes to confront the intruders, he doesn’t return and mother and daughter are left at the mercy of Jerry (Israel Cruz Cordova).

Jerry didn’t want to kill Reza and claims that he only did so in self-defense. Jerry claims that the outpost they call home had once belonged to his parents and he intends to stay here. Eventually, Jerry makes a deal with Ilsa, he will stay for 30 days and if, after that time period, she isn’t convinced to let him stay in peace, he will lay down his gun and let her decide whether she will kill him or live in peace with him.

Remmy is uncertain about how she feels about this. She doesn’t like or trust Jerry, because he did kill her father, but she doesn’t want anyone to be killed. In the midst of their 30 day détente, Remmy befriends a robot tool that belongs to Jerry. The robot, which she names Steve, appears to respond to her in the same way a dog does. The two play together and the robot becomes Remmy’s only friend. Kind of like how smartphones, tablets and video gaming machines became the refuge of children who sheltered at home during the pandemic. Did you pick up on that? On the completely on the nose metaphor?

If you haven’t picked up on the thick metaphors at play here, you aren’t really trying. Settlers is a very unsubtle take on the pandemic and the effect that the isolation of the last 14 plus months have had on people. In the mind of writer-director Wyatt Rockefeller the pandemic has led to mistrust, isolation and desperation akin to being trapped on an alien planet unable to emerge into society without a mask as there is only atmosphere inside the realm of the home, or in this case, a dome encasing a breathable, farmable atmosphere.

Beyond the tortured dystopian metaphor, Settlers has no other ideas. I get that the movie is intended to comment upon what it is like to remain isolated and begin to press back out into the world but there needs to be an incident, there needs to be something beyond just an idea. Settlers lingers for seemingly endless, ponderous scene after scene without much of anything happening.

If the intention of Settlers is to capture the mind-melting boredom of the shelter at home era, mission accomplished. Settlers feels about as entertaining as sitting at home all the time, unable to leave because of the potential for deadly disease. I can assume that this boredom is intentional and that Settlers is intended as a mood piece but I can locate boredom on my own, I don’t watch movies with the intention of being bored or capturing the mood of unending isolation.

After a while of just lingering the movie appears to be building toward an older Remmy, played as a teenager by Nell Tiger Free, finally going off on her own and venturing into the unknown world outside her dome of safety but just as we reach that point, Settlers ends. I welcomed the movie being over but at least seeing Remmy leave the dome would have been an incident that might give the movie a purpose beyond its metaphor but, oh well.

Settlers opens in limited theatrical release and for on-demand rental on July 23rd, 2021 from IFC Midnight.