STAR PEOPLE - Mark Reviews Movies

Star People, Blue Harbor Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 24, 2025

Nobody mentions what the so-called "Phoenix Lights" of 1997 probably were in Star People, because this isn't a movie about rational thinking or actions. Writer/director Adam Finberg's movie revolves around people who are lost and desperate, holding on to a dream that there might be something better for them beyond the life they have known.

Someone could tell Claire (Kat Cunning), who saw the Phoenix Lights as a kid and has spent her life looking for them again, that the V-formation of lights in the sky was probably aircraft from a nearby Air Force base, for example. She probably wouldn't listen, though, because it's not what she wants to hear.

The movie, then, isn't necessarily about this specific phenomenon or even unidentified flying objects and aliens more generally. After being enlisted to track down another series of lights that looks a lot like the ones from '97, Claire is joined, not only by a fellow believer in extraterrestrials, but also by her brother, who is struggling with drug addiction after living a life of uncertainty similar to his sister's, and, to kind of make the thematic point a bit clearer, an undocumented migrant, who has taken his daughter into the United States with the hope that her life might be better.

There's a good amount to admire, in other words, about Finberg's debut narrative feature. It's a little movie about some big ideas—the least of which, perhaps, might be the possibility that aliens from another planet have made themselves known to and influence the lives of some people on Earth. It features characters whose concerns are as grounded as their hopes extend to the skies and a land beyond their own, and the movie feels more relevant at times than a story that's ostensibly about extraterrestrials has any right to be.

That Finberg's ambitions get in the way of telling this story with some focus and of finding a resolution that is as down-to-earth as the rest of the narrative is, perhaps, inevitable. The filmmaker has basically set himself up with diametrically opposed and contradictory concerns in shaping this story, and even if it is ultimately disappointing, Finberg's movie makes an admirable effort.

Claire, who spends her time searching for and taking photographs of possible UFOs (or unidentified aerial phenomena, as she's probably too old-school to call them), gets a gig opportunity near the U.S.-Mexico border. It's offered by Felix (Bradley Fisher), the leader of a private militia of sorts that patrols the border on its own authority looking for migrants and any sign of cartel drug activity on their side. Recently, the group has spotted a string of lights in the sky, much like the ones that made national news almost three decades prior, and they're convinced the lights are drones operated by some cartel. Felix wants Claire to get better photographs to confirm their suspicions.

The group offers her a house to stay in while she's doing the job, and she's accompanied by extraterrestrial-seeking online personality Justin (Connor Paolo), who's hoping for a big break for his small platform, and her brother Taylor (McCabe Slye), who recently overdosed and needs a place to stay after his housemate kicks him out. The siblings have become estranged over the years, since they spent most of their childhoods in separate foster homes and don't have anything except bad memories and awful stories to share.

Once it becomes clear that the possibilities UFOs and aliens are just means to different dramatic ends here, the story opens up in unexpected ways. This isn't, for example, about obsession with extraterrestrials, since that's essentially a way to escape for Claire. She and Taylor have a lot in common, in other words, following childhoods of watching their parents fight and experiencing the complete collapse of their family. Her search for a sign as potent as the '97 lights that something is out there is as much an overwhelming addiction as it is a passion, because it defines everything about who Claire is, how she sees the world, and what she believes as some kind of evidence of a higher calling.

Initially, the introduction of Ricardo (Eddie Martinez) and his daughter Gabby (Adrana Aluna), who have broken into the house where Claire and the others are staying to take shelter from a heat wave, seems jarring. For one thing, a story about immigration in the middle of one about aliens comes across as a forced metaphor or a bad pun, but Finberg's screenplay connects these two groups of characters in a way beyond the fact that Ricardo explains how a mysterious light guided them to the house. Everyone (except for the militia, obviously, and Justin, who becomes an obstacle eventually) here is looking for some meaning in the unknowable, some purpose beyond themselves, and some hope in a future that's better than the past.

For a while, it feels as if UFOs and aliens are just an excuse to tell this other, more practical story, which is far more intriguing than Claire's trips to the desert at night and more compassionate about its lost souls than one might anticipate. Unfortunately, Star People is far too busy to examine these characters and ideas without making it all about extraneous, external conflict (namely the milia) and extraterrestrials, and while its anticlimactic conclusion offers one answer, it's to a question that seems irrelevant by that point.

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