Aneesha (Golshifteh Farahani), who has given up medicine to focus on her family, discovers that her husband has a mistress when their neighborhood loses power. Mitsuki (Shioli Kutsuna), who works at the Japanese space agency, wonders if her astronaut girlfriend might have survived an accident mid-mission. Caspar (Billy Barratt) is on a school field trip when the bus goes off the road during what appears to be a meteorite strike. And Trevante (Shamier Anderson), who is deployed to Iraq, is bewildered after coming across a reconnaissance weapon that defies the law of physics. What these ordinary citizens do not know at the beginning of this story, when they face their particular crises that have to do with family, forbidden love or bullying, is that they are facing an alien invasion.
The creators of Invasion, Simon Kingberg and David Weil, make dissonance the main attraction of their narrative proposal. The portrayal of the character's conflicts is intimate, enveloping them in an evocative, existentialist, hypnotic slowness: the disconcerted glances of Goldshifteh Farahani, Shioli Kutsuna and Billy Barratt are trusted with stoic determination.
The way in which details of the invading species are revealed has a close point: the alien matter or its way of communicating is presented from the personal experience of those who come across the information. At the same time, the production values are outsized and the story's ambition is beastly.
No cost is spared when it comes to setting the action in various locations, from the Middle Eastern desert to a practically deserted London, Japan or some American suburbs, each with its own photography, its color and sharing the contemplative and decisive attitude of the characters that parade through the stages.
No attention is paid to imagination when imagining a species that defies earthly principles both aesthetically and conceptually, always understanding that the viewer cannot know more about them than the characters. And, despite having this very personal approach to the invasion, his narrative ambition is epic, aided by the music of Max Richter or an outcome from the first season that vindicates the grandeur of what he witnessed.
That first season aired between October and December 2021 amid disinterest from the public, who has trouble paying attention to Apple TV fiction unless it's Ted Lasso, and lukewarm to dire reviews. But, excuse my audacity, we were facing a misunderstood work that took the premise of the alien invasion to human existentialism. It could have been frustrating and, instead, it was an emotional mosaic about the bewilderment, the survival instinct and the consequent empowerment of these subjects affected by the invasion.
Now that Apple has announced the premiere of the second season for August 23, the viewer has seven weeks to catch up with this series that should be cult. And, for those who have already seen it, a teaser of what is to come in Invasion:
