Sundance review: Utah-made 'Aliens Abducted My Family...' deploys good clean humor to tell a charming tale of teens looking to the skies

Restoring one’s faith in family-friendly movies, the made-in-Utah teen comedy “Aliens Abducted My Parens and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out” is as funny and as charming as its very long title.

Itsy Levan (played by Emma Tremblay) is decidedly unhappy about her parents’ decision to leave the big city for the small town of Pebble Falls. While Mom (Hailey Smith) and Dad (Matt Biedel) are busy renovating their new fixer-upper house and dreaming of being the next Chip and Joanna Gaines, Itsy tries to avoid her bratty younger brother, Evan (Kenneth Cummins), and fit in at her new high school.

When the school’s queen bee, Heather (Landry Townsend), tells Itsy there’s a high school journalism contest that could send her to study in New York, Itsy jumps at the chance. The prompt for the contest is to write about the weirdest thing in one’s hometown, and Heather has the perfect candidate in mind: Calvin Kipler (Jacob Buster), who comes to school in his own homemade space suit.

Itsy soon learns that Calvin is tracking the imminent arrival of Jesper’s Comet, which passes by Earth once every 10 years. The last time the comet passed, Calvin was six (and played, in flashback, by Cummins’ little brother Thomas), and his parents disappeared — and Calvin maintains they were taken by aliens. Calvin believes that when the comet returns, he will be reunited with his parents, and possibly join them on their interstellar travels.

Director Jake Van Wagoner, a veteran of BYUtv’s sketch-comedy series “Studio C,” and screenwriter Austin Everett put Itsy and Calvin through the expected teen comedy hoops — including a sweetly chaste romance and some serious moments involving Calvin’s parents (Will Forte and Elizabeth Mitchell).

What makes “Aliens Abducted My Parents…” transcend its predictable plot points is the humor level, neither dumbed down or too cynical, and the sincerely charming performances by Tremblay and Buster — two teen actors who could break out into bigger things.

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‘Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out’

★★★1/2

Playing in the Kids section of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Screens again Monday, Jan. 23, 9 a.m., Prospector Square Theatre, Park City; Tuesday, Jan. 24, 6:15 p.m., Grand Theatre, Salt Lake City; and Saturday, Jan. 28, 1:30 p.m., Megaplex Theatres at The Gateway, Salt Lake City. Also screening online on the Sundance platform, starting Tuesday, Jan. 24. Not rated, but probably PG for some mild peril and thematic content. Running time: 85 minutes.