Three aliens travel to Earth in preparation for a mass invasion, taking possession of human bodies.

A young girl in a school uniform walks home with a new pet goldfish in a plastic bag. Soon thereafter, her parents have been brutally murdered and she is splattered in their blood, wandering down the highway as cars swerve around her.  A woman brings her husband home from the hospital where he has been under observation because he just doesn’t seem like the same man as before, always asking for assistance with the simplest words, concepts and actions. A reporter investigating the murders is questioned by an odd teen-aged boy looking for the now-missing girl. The boy claims the reporter as his “guide,” climbing into his truck and expecting to be helped. The reporter, shrugging, drives off with him.

Three seemingly random events that will puzzle together in interesting ways over the next few days, and make up the bulk of Before We Vanish, an extraterrestrial invasion that is equal parts Twilight Zone and Wes Anderson movies, and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (The Cure and Pulse).

The wife and odd husband (Narumi and Shinji Kase, ably played by Masami Nagasawa and Ryûhei Matsuda, respectively) are hosting Narumi’s sister for dinner. Shinji seems unfamiliar with the words “sister” and “family,” and asks the younger sister, Asumi, to explain the relationships further. When she is done explaining, Shinji touches her forehead with his index finger and says, “I’ll take that.” Asumi collapses to the floor and starts crying–but as she rushes out the door she is oddly smiling, too.

The murderous girl, Akira, the teenaged boy, Amano, and the husband are all aliens that have taken over human bodies to learn about earthlings before an invasion decimates the planet (and this is not a spoiler, as Amano lays this all out in the first ten minutes or so). Every concept or thought the aliens are unfamiliar with or ignorant of gets yanked out of a human’s mind with varying consequences: “work” gets taken out of Narumi’s boss’s mind, and so he spends the rest of the day climbing on the tables, throwing paper airplanes, and demolishing small models of buildings; Shinji’s reclusive neighbor gets “possessions” wiped from his mind and suddenly feels free to wander the streets, happily interacting with strangers.

Some of the best scenes are the quiet ones between Narumi and Shinji, trying to rebuild a broken relationship (it’s heavily implied that before Shinji got invaded, they were in dire straits, marriage-wise). Narumi is very tender and gentle with Shinji, even as it finally dawns on her what he’s doing and why.  Eventually, she makes a pretty bold and kind of self-serving decision that ultimately means…something? Nothing? Kurosawa wants us to believe that the strong bonds of love that humans share might be the only thing to save our world. It’s a nice and worthy sentiment, but I’m not sure if he gets there honestly.

Along the way, Akira swings around a stolen machine gun, giving lead poisoning to the people trying to keep her away from the other aliens.  Other scenes play almost like parodies of romantic comedies with bright upbeat music amidst bloody or explosive acts, which totally changes the tone of the movie, but briefly, and then it goes back to examining the human condition via naive aliens.  It’s also never quite explained why the reporter, Sakurai, readily goes off with Amano in the first place? Is he bored? Does he sense a deeper story? Is he afraid of the boy? I never got a sense of the reason behind this plot point (other than, if he refuses, the movie ends).

Is the movie worth your time? Definitely. There are some big ideas about humankind and the way we communicate and our sense of self and others that are important and interesting. Although it’s occasionally uneven, the whole ends up greater than the sum of its parts, and I really liked it. Uncle Mike suggests you check it out.