The genius of “Landscape With Invisible Hand” is that the alien takeover of Earth isn’t the most important part of the story.

Instead, it’s about two families struggling to survive in an increasingly economically cutthroat world. It’s set in the mid-2030s, but its concerns are very 2023. Class and racial tensions, wealth disparity, poverty, authoritarianism, artificial intelligence and social media inform director Cory Finley’s adaptation of M.T. Anderson’syoung adult book.

The aliens, who are considerably smaller than humans and look like some type of strange sea creatures (one character refers to them as “gooey coffee tables”), hover above the Earth’s surface in spaceships and control all commerce, running the world like a totalitarian regime. Apparently, they look at the takeover of the planet as an economic opportunity.

This has created something like a second Great Depression, with people out of work because their jobs have become obsolete. Entire families are homeless.

The Campbell family, however, is an exception. Although Beth (Tiffany Haddish) can no longer work as a lawyer, she is able to keep the family home and support son Adam (Asante Blackk of “This Is Us”) and daughter Natalie (Brooklynn MacKinzie) by doing odd jobs.

Adam, a talented artist (whose paintings illustrate chapter breaks in the film), falls in love with his school classmate Chloe (Kylie Rogers, “Beau Is Afraid”). When he finds out she is homeless, he invites her family, including father (Josh Hamilton) and brother (Michael Gandolfini), to stay in the basement.

This creates class tension. Chloe, meanwhile, persuades Adam to live-stream their dates in order to make money because the aliens, fascinated by human mating rituals, apparently will pay to watch.

“Landscape With Invisible Hand” is wildly ambitious yet curiously chill. Finley, who brought a sense of snarkiness to his debut film“纯种动物”(2018), a teenage noir starring Anya Taylor-Joy, doesn’t quite find the right tone here. Adam is strangely inert while every character around him is more interesting, especially Beth, who commands the screen thanks to Haddish’s charismatic performance.

Still, there is much to like. “Landscape With Invisible Hand” is a bizarre, off-kilter experience that shows us how we are destroying ourselves, no aliens necessary.

Reach G. Allen Johnson:ajohnson@sfchronicle.com