By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 4, 2011)

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same is about as benign as a midnight movie gets. Sort of a mash-up of (a less funny) Clerks with Coneheads, it’s a wildly uneven and self-consciously campy affair that’s just endearing enough to make it tough to dislike. Writer-director Madeleine Olnek’s setup is clever; scientists on a distant planet theorize that the holes in their ozone are exacerbated by the disruptive vibes of lonely singles with too many “big feelings” (i.e. unrequited love). Their solution? Send the culprits to Earth, each with a directive to hook up with a human, who will of course break their heart and put them off of this silly love thing.

The story follows the travails of three of these exiles, one of whom ends up with a socially awkward NYC store clerk (Lisa Haas). There are some genuine laughs, particularly whenever Olnek hits on some universal truths about relationships, but I wish there had been more of that and much less of a subplot involving two “men in black” who engage in scene after scene of painfully unfunny banter (quite amateurishly acted, as well) that drags the film down. The good news is that Olnek does display enough of an assured hand to hint that better things could be on the way in future.