Love is a purely human emotion that can’t be faked — such is the theme at the center of the first trailer for Cory Finley’s “Landscape With Invisible Hand,” released Tuesday.
The film is based on the book by M.T. Anderson and, per the official synopsis, it takes place years into a benevolent occupation of Earth by an alien species. “When 17-year-old artist Adam Campbell (Asante Blackk) and new girlfriend Chloe Marsh (Kylie Rogers) discover the Vuvv are particularly fascinated with human love and will pay for access to it, they decide to livestream their budding romance to make extra cash for themselves and their families. Life is good, for a while, until the flame of their teenage love fizzles out and they’re forced to make very different, absurdly life-altering sacrifices for their families.”
The trailer looks like a quirky romantic comedy, albeit with an alien invasion in the middle of it. The question of whether Adam and Chloe’s love will turn into something real is, no doubt, the main question to be answered within the film. The aliens themselves certainly aren’t intimidating and, if Finley’s past work is any indication, the film looks to explore why an alien race would be so fascinated with love in the first place.
“Landscape With Invisible Hand” is the first feature film from Finley in four years, since his 2019 feature “Bad Education,” which starred Hugh Jackman and aired on HBO. Before that, he burst onto the scene with the dark comedy “Thoroughbreds” in 2017, starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke as two teens planning to commit murder. In the interim he also directed two episodes of the AppleTV+ miniseries “WeCrashed,” starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway as the married founders of WeWork.
Alongside Blackk and Rogers the film also stars Tiffany Haddish as Adam’s mother. Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner act as producers while Brad Pitt, Gabby Shepard, David Kern, M.T. Anderson, Megan Ellison and Haddish are executive producers.
Watch the full trailer for “Landscape With Invisible Hand” above.
“Landscape With Invisible Hand” hits theaters Aug. 18.
