Settlers

They’re all alone out there, tending their desert farm, feeding their pigs, making their own entertainment.Dad (Jonny Lee Miller) distracts little Remy (Brooklyn Prince) with joke-threat contests, stories and star-gazing. Mom (Sofia Boutella) handles the home-schooling, and sometimes sings and plays the guitar.Settlers 2021.

But there’s something they’re not telling their tween, something beyond “Earth isn’t what it once was.” There’s a reason Remy and her dad have a running gag about her running away.“You gonna stay?” He always wants to know. And smiles or not, he’s never sure of the answer. She’s restless and lonely. And she’s a smart, curious kid.In “Settlers” their dry, desert frontier is on Mars, a modular habitat farm that is weathered and breaking down. They can’t be all alone, but when their daughter remarks about “strangers nearby,” they assure her that can’t be true.

Her waking up to the sounds of pig squeals and a bloody “LEAVE” painted on their window reveals the Big Lie. They aren’t alone, and the two adults’ quick reaction — he grabs a rifle, she’s palms a knife — show they recognize a familiar threat.Whatever they have on this barren but oxygenated piece of Mars, they’re prepared to defend. Whatever they have they might not have come by via the usual means. And whatever it takes, when interlopers come for their kid, blood will be spilled.“Settlers” is what happens after that fight, when Dad dies and somebody else (Ismael Cruz Cordova) comes in, armed and expecting to take his place.Writer-director Wyatt Rockefeller’s debut feature is kind of the anti-“Martian, a downbeat and almost forlorn “Twilight Zone” parable of sci-fi tropes running up against basic human nature.It has a “Silent Running” vibe, with a hint of “Planet of the Apes.” Remy will discover things that have been kept from her, things that the viewer might figure out before her. She might long to learn more, rebel against her circumstances. But how much knowledge is too much? And no matter how far you travel, your humanity and the base corners of human nature travel with you.