Landscape with Invisible Hand

Landscape with Invisible Hand (2023) is a science-fiction satire from director Cory Finley you can watch online on iFILM. Earth has spent years under the gentle occupation of an alien species called the Vuvv, whose technology has wiped out nearly every human job and paycheck.

Teenage artist Adam (Asante Blaq) and his girlfriend Chloe (Kylie Rogers) spot a loophole. The aliens, it turns out, will pay to watch human love — so the two start livestreaming their relationship for a Vuvv audience. The money flows, their families breathe easier, and then the feelings curdle under the lens, with no way to cancel the contract without bankrupting everyone at home. Tiffany Haddish and William Jackson Harper round out the cast.

Finley, who made Thoroughbreds, adapts M.T. Anderson's novel and turns a story about romance-for-rent into a sharp, dry look at an economy that buys up the intimate. It's strange, melancholy and unexpectedly funny — sci-fi for people who care less about space battles than about the humans stuck under the new rules. Stream Landscape with Invisible Hand (2023) online on iFILM.