Review: Search for signs of intelligent love in ‘Lesbian Space Alien’

As goofy and singular as its look-twice title, “Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same” is a weirdly ingratiating trifle lampooning dating, urban isolation, cut-rate sci-fi flicks and ecology. It’s got midnight movie written all over it — and not in a bad way.

This black-and-white comedy follows the romantic blossoming of self-conscious, lovelorn lesbian and stationery store clerk Jane (Lisa Haas) after she meets an honest-to-goodness alien named Zoinx (Susan Ziegler).

Turns out the deadpan, bald-headed Zoinx, along with fellow space travelers Zylar (Jackie Monahan) and Barr (Cynthia Kaplan), have been sent from faraway Zots, “a tiny planet oxyparallel to the rings of Saturn,” to help save their homeland’s waning ozone layer by experiencing heartbreak on Earth.

Like everything else here, it’s best just to take that “solution” at face value and enjoy the sometimes laugh-out-loud silliness.

Although writer-director Madeleine Olnek knows when to leave the party (her film runs a brief and not terribly swift 76 minutes), she still manages to pack in enough fun character quirks, giddily cheesy effects, perky throwaway lines and cockeyed romantic bits — not to mention a subplot involving a gabby pair of undercover G-men (Alex Karpovsky and Dennis Davis) — to make “Codependent” a memorable curio.

—Gary Goldstein

“Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same.” No MPAA Rating; in English and “Zotsian” with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 16 minutes. At the Downtown Independent, Los Angeles.