JULES
NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Evonne
Milton (Ben Kingsley) is retired, no longer drives, and has limited social interaction.
His routine is walking to the weekly Boonton city council meeting to complain about the town slogan and the need for another crosswalk, watering his zinnias in his garden, and watching TV. His daughter regularly checks in with him to help pay bills and has noticed his memory is starting to slide. She found a can of green beans in the bathroom cabinet.
Also attending the weekly city council meetings are his neighbors Sandy (Harriet Sansom Harris), an artist who wants to get involved by connecting with the community, and Joyce (Jane Curtin), who pays close attention to what everyone is saying and doing.
One night, Milton is watching TV when a bright light comes across the back window, and there is a loud noise. He investigates in the backyard and finds a crashed UFO in his garden. He’s upset that the UFO has broken his birdbath and ruined his flower garden.
He calls 911 to complain about the UFO damage to his garden. The operator thinks it’s a hoax, threatens to have him fined, and disconnects. He goes to bed.
The following day, he walks into town for the council meeting. He provides the same two complaints and adds that a UFO in his backyard broke his birdbath and ruined his zinnias. Asks what the council is going to do about that. They don’t answer and move on to the next opinion. Sandy is next up and says she will put posters for older people to connect with younger people and just talk. She has lots to share and will inform the council of how that project goes.
Outside after the council meeting, Sandy asks Milton if he is all right and offers to give him a ride home. She warns him to be careful about talking about aliens as that could make people doubt him, and they might put him in a home. Joyce notices that Sandy is giving Milton a ride.
Dropping Milton off at home, Sandy tells Milton she can drive him places if he needs a ride sometimes. As they are sitting in the car talking, Joyce drives by and notices Sandy’s car is parked in his driveway.
After Sandy leaves, Milton checks on the UFO, notices the alien has crawled out from the UFO toward the house, and is lying face down on his patio. The alien raises its head, makes eye contact with Milton, and then passes out. Milton leaves him outside and makes a call to his daughter. Her voicemail box is full, but Milton leaves her a message anyway, complaining about the UFO and Alien, and not sure what he should do, and he is scared.
After hanging up the phone, he got a blanket to cover the alien and left a glass of water near its hand. In the morning, the alien is awake, still weak, and sitting on the ground near the foot of the back stairs, wrapped in a blanket. Milton invites him inside, where it’s warmer. He uses a sweeping arm motion to gesture for the alien to come inside.
Milton gives him a tour of the home and brings him a tray of different food to see what the Alien likes to eat. Milton shows him pictures of his family. He shares that his son doesn’t call him as he wasn’t a very good dad.
Of all Milton’s food, the alien only liked the sliced apple…., his last apple. The alien is still weak, so Milton invites it to sleep on the sofa and watch TV while he goes grocery shopping. At the store, Milton buys 8-10 apples and tells the clerk that the apples are for the alien. The clerk asks if it’s an illegal alien, and Milton tells him no, an alien from outer space. Later, Milton’s daughter comes by the store and hears about Milton’s odd behavior from the clerk.
That night, Milton and the alien sit and watch TV. Milton falls asleep on the sofa and wakes in the morning tucked in with a blanket by the alien. The Alien also left Milton a note that is a drawing of a cartoon cat face. He finds the alien in the backyard working to fix his ship. Milton thanks him for the drawing and invites him in for breakfast, apple slices.
The daughter comes over while the alien sits in the living room watching TV with a plate of sliced apples. She doesn’t see him; she only talks to Milton from the doorstep. She wants him to consider seeing a specialist to get his memory tested. The new behavior is concerning. He says he’ll think about it. She gets a call from work and has to leave.
Sandy phones and asks if Milton has a printer she can use to print up her fliers for the older people connecting with young people project. She comes over and nearly faints when she sees the alien sitting on the sofa. Milton tells her he thinks it’s a friendly alien and shares that it only eats apples.
She tells Milton that he needs to stop telling people about the UFO and the alien as it will bring the government, and you know what they do to aliens. Milton shows Sandy the drawings that the alien gives him. It’s the same picture over and over. Seven drawn cartoon cat faces. Sandy, as an artist, is fascinated by the images. She says they have to protect him, and no one else can know. Just then, Joyce drives by and notices Sandy’s car in the driveway again!
Cut to a government call center where several agents listen into phone conversations and follow up with any mention of spaceships or aliens. Men in suits show up at several houses to investigate leads, but none pan out.
Sandy brings the alien a T-shirt the next day, so it’s not naked. She dresses it as if it’s a child by bringing its hands up over its head so she can dress it in the t-shirt. The alien has drawn another picture of 7 cartoon cat faces. Sandy drives Milton to the store to buy more apples. His daughter confronts him in the parking lot and asks what all the apples are for, and he is defensive and says it’s none of her business and they are for him. He denies any alien living at his house and said he was joking. The daughter is also surprised he is hanging out with his neighbor Sandy. To get rid of her, he says, fine – go ahead and make an appointment.
Milton is seen putting shaving cream on his face, looking for his razor, not finding it, and then wiping off the shaving cream. Forgetting actually to shave.
Milton has to run an errand with his daughter to see the therapist, so Sandy babysits the alien, just sitting on the sofa and talking to it. She shares that she has a daughter in a relationship with a woman, and they have a child…her grandson. She shows him pictures on her phone. They live in California. When her daughter came out, she told her it didn’t matter, that she would always love her. The other woman’s mom was not so welcoming. Sandy begins to weep as she says they spend all their time sucking up to the other mom, and they never come to visit. It’s been three years since she has seen her daughter and grandson.
At the therapist appointment, Milton is asked to take some memory tests. He passes two but fails ones. She asks if he ever puts things in random places. He tries to say this is nothing; it rarely happens. His daughter shares that she found a newspaper in the freezer and a can of beans in the bathroom cabinet. He gets frustrated, feels set up, and storms out of the appointment.
Back at the house, Sandy, Milton, and the alien are eating lunch at the table when Joyce knocks on the door. She peeked through the window and saw the alien sitting at the table. She barges in, saying she already saw the alien and wants to meet him. She insists that she gets to be in on this. No one else can know except the 3 of them. Sandy was just coming up with the name Jules for the alien, but Joyce prefers the name Gary. Milton doesn’t think they need a name.
In the next scene, Sandy is at her home and gets a phone call in response to her flyer. A young man wants to connect with her. He mentions that he is not young, more in his 20’s, but he would still like to meet. Sandy invites him over.
Joyce pushes her way into Milton’s house the next day with a Tupperware of apple slices. Milton thinks the alien would prefer to work on fixing his spaceship. Still, with Joyce there, they end up sitting on the sofa, and Joyce tells the alien that she was quite a looker when she was young, lived in New York City, and also used to sing. She then starts to pose and sing.
Sandy doesn’t come over that day as she is meeting with the guy from her project. Sandy has invited the young man to her home. He’s 27, and she says she’s 72. He then needs to use the bathroom, but she finds him going through her jewelry instead. Sandy tells him she’s going to call the cops. He starts to chase after her.
Back to Milton’s house – while Joyce is singing and putting on a show, the alien suddenly sits up and, in its mind, can see Sandy running from the man, getting pulled to the ground, and the man choking her. The alien’s skull turns deep blue momentarily and then clears up.
The scene cuts to Sandy’s house, where there is blood all over. The police are asking her to go through what happened again. Per Sandy, he was on top of her, choking her, and then his head just exploded. They asked if anything changed for her before this incident, and she said no – and then it clicked that Jules must have helped her.
Sandy arrives at Milton’s and hugs the alien, saying it saved her life. Joyce then has to ask what the bad smell is like, something dead. First, Sandy thinks it’s her, but then they see the alien has found a dead cat. It didn’t kill it as the dead cat as it’s flat and has a tire tread mark on it. The alien then gives them a new cartoon cat-face drawing with only six cat faces. They finally piece it together that the alien needs a total of 7 dead cats to fix his ship. They all agree to help.
Milton calls his daughter, who is a vet, and asks her what they do with the dead cats. Do they dump them in the trashcan? His daughter is more concerned about this strange topic, and Milton gets off the phone.
He and Sandy drive very slowly around town, looking for dead cats. At the same time, the police are suspicious of how the head could have just exploded, and they start to follow Sandy. While in the car, Milton asks Sandy how it happened with her husband. When the symptoms of forgetting started, Sandy shared that it started with little things, forgetting words, and forgetting where he put things. Suddenly, he tells her to stop. She thinks he doesn’t want to hear any more of her story, but it’s because he’s found a dead cat. The police have no idea what to make of Sandy and Milton shoveling dead animals into a trash bag.
Sandy and Milton find three dead cats, and Joyce finds two more. They need one more cat to get the ship ready to fly. Milton suggests Joyce’s cat, which is 14 years old, blind, deaf, and can’t walk. After agonizing over it, Joyce agrees that it’s probably best. The alien’s head turns blue, and it gently puts the cat to sleep. No exploding head. Once all the seven dead cats are arranged under a silver cloth, it transforms into an oval red jewel, and the alien installs it into the ship.
The alien successfully tests the ship, and it’s ready to fly. They each give the alien a goodbye gift to remember them. Joyce gives him a snow globe of New York, Sandy gives him a sweater, and Milton gives him a pictured ID so he’ll remember what Milton looks like. Using the same sweeping arm motion, the Alien invites Milton to come with him. Milton decides to go with him. And then the house phone rings. It’s his daughter, and she is apologetic, doesn’t want to fight, and wants to hang out with him. He says he needs to check his calendar.
The government agents arrive at Milton’s house and break down his door. He hangs up, and he, Joyce, and Sandy run into the spacecraft. It takes off, and they escape the agents.
The spaceship door opens, and they are in an environment with giant boulders. They figure out they are in a quarry near the house, as it was just a few seconds. As exciting as it was to jump onto the ship, Milton has a change of heart and decides to stay on earth and be near his daughter. So they wave goodbye to the alien.
A few days later, they are sitting around at Milton’s, and Joyce and Sandy wonder if the alien will remember them. Milton says nothing. Later that night, as he’s watching TV, you see the light move across the back window as the alien comes back.
