Encounter Review: Riz Ahmed highlights Amazon’s outspoken science fiction drama

Every morning, Malik Khan (Riz Ahmed) wakes up, examines his eyes for blemishes and sprays his entire body with bug spray. The earth has been invaded by parasitic microscopic organisms from space, and he is one of the few people who is not infected. To encounter, Michael Pearce’s devious, allegorical continuation of a wicked romance animal, is a science fiction road trip film that aims to become a Steven Spielberg project. But it relies less on grounded sharpness than on emotional manipulation.

Malik is an army veteran. It’s been two years since he saw his sons Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and Bobby (Aditya Geddada). They live on a farm with their mother Piya (Janina Gavankar) and their new spouse Lance (Shane McRae). Every day the boys devour letters from their father, in which he tells them about his daily missions in the fight against aliens. His stories primarily invade Jay, who spends his days drawing space monsters. They think he’s a hero. And despite his long absence, when he returns in the middle of the night and challenges them on an adventure, they cannot resist. So Malik kidnaps his sons.

On the wavelength of Close encounter of the third kind, To encounter is about a worried, absent father who tries to protect his sons while ultimately succumbing to his own dogmatism. Malik sincerely loves his boys and wholeheartedly believes that he is doing what is right to protect them. His casual relationship with them enchants. That’s partly because of the lovable dialogue in Pearce and Joe Barton’s initially simple script. It also happens because of this trio of actors: Sweet comes from Ahmed, of course, which shouldn’t be a big surprise at this point in his career, and Geddada and Chauhan develop a natural relationship with their screen dad. They go beyond a child’s performance by being so knowing. Pearce uses a lot of close-ups, and with every cut to Geddada or Chauhan, the inner machinations of their characters – fear, longing, happiness and confusion – arrive without a hint of artificiality.

The crux of the matter, however, comes when Malik’s absence worries his probation officer Hattie (played by a understaffed, signed Octavia Spencer). Hattie only informs authorities to make them believe Malik is an exterminator: a vengeful father who will soon execute his sons and himself. In contrast to the road trip parts, the dramatic tension of Malik’s psychology, the violence he’s capable of in the right circumstances, is thin. The subplot relies too heavily on stereotypes about soldiers suffering from PTSD to have a dramatic effect.

Pearce fuels seemingly mundane conflicts with a homeless woman, a pesky street cop, and a gas station attendant – suggesting they’re all infected – over heightened fear. Clay is used in a similar way. The increased scattering of beetles creates unsettling set pieces in quaint diners and shabby hotels. We see this world first through the eyes of the determined Malik, then through the sons who worship him and in response see how he sees the world. The sights are visually great scenes: Malik races uncontrollably along an empty street in his truck, apparently lurching against gravity. The secret of lies in this border area, where the earth is controlled by microscopic intruders, where the headlights of Malik’s trucks create an otherworldly effect against the dark desert sky To encounter exudes its deepest spell.

But Pearce can’t keep that tantalizing balance. The once heavenly, sun-drenched composition by cameraman Benjamin Kracun changes to orange, sand-smeared landscapes. Malik ventures too far. He begins to unravel by succumbing to outbursts of anger. He also injures the father of two weapon-bearing Yahoos, and they hunt him across the country to seek revenge. The desolate but picturesque site is shifting to an abandoned city. The collapsed concrete buildings, the dusty air and the barren streets are reminiscent of the war in the Middle East.

To encounter

seeks to become a parable of xenophobia and the wars that have ruled the American political landscape for nearly two decades (really, even more). It is strange, however, that both children are named Bobby and Jay. Perhaps their westernized names are a sign of Malik’s assimilation, especially since he is in the army. But this sense of assimilation does not creep into the primary text. Instead, the audience has to infer their intent by bringing their own cultural competence to the film. There is almost a feeling that To encounter started as a film written for an all-white cast, then changed course when Ahmed was tied, but was never rewritten to accommodate the color-blind casting with the new subjects that emerged from it. The parabola component is all too confusing to land its intended emotional blow.

Just like the climax where he and his boys are being chased by federal agents. Without spoiling too much, your life will be more than in danger. Brown people are held at gunpoint by white people with itchy fingers. It’s a setup designed for surface level stresses. While there are the political connotations that drive the scene, it takes a lot of effort to make Malik a personable figure. While there is one way the audience would feel sorry for him in this situation, Pearce’s graceful simile hits the message too hard on the head. If Pearce wasn’t so clumsy, if he were just confident enough to know how to associate character with metaphor, then then To encounter, a flawed science fiction flick with a simple premise, could be a great adventure for the stars.

To encounter is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.