THE FIRST MAN spends much time spinning its wheels, with a plot vaguely hinted at occasionally: humanoid extraterrestrials have crashed to Earth, and government agents are hunting some down while keeping another in a lab to study. Apparently the lab specimen is so handsome that he has irresistible power over human females (in real life, it's usually the human males who misplace their rationality when an attractive member of the opposite sex walks in.)
A lot of the time we viewers are just hanging around with the characters; in the lab, roaming around Los Angeles, at the breakfast table, and, in a climactic sequence, at a Halloween party. The civilian characters include a just pre-stardom Heather Graham as a newlywed; in one scene she tells a joke that would get her "canceled" these days. Other recognizable faces (given the film's microbudget look, perhaps all of the money went to hiring them) include Roxana Zal and Lesley Ann Warren.
The arty, oblique fashion in which the minimal story gets adumbrated (with blackouts in between scenes a la STRANGER THAN PARADISE) leads me to wonder if the art-film approach was planned from the beginning, or eventually adopted as an expedient due to the lack of budget for special effects. Thematically, writer/director Danny Kuchuck obviously has the old Philip K. Dick theme of "How can one tell what is really human?" (as in "Impostor" and DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?) in mind, but does nothing with the idea.
Bottom line: I can see why this was just included as a Blu-Ray extra (on the Vinegar Syndrome BLUE VENGEANCE disc) and not given its own release. On the plus side, suburban LA looks pretty.
