Reza (Jonny Lee Miller) is the father, Ilsa (Sofia Boutella) is the mother and the daughter is Remmy (Brooklynn Prince). Dad teaches Remmy the constellations, mom cultivates plants and cooks dinner. There’s a big shed-like building and a living quarters with long hallways and the pigpen and the graveyard up on the hill, although I’m getting ahead of myself with that one. Nobody wanders too far from the settlement. When the kid asks, Reza talks of his former life on Earth in less than halcyon terms. He didn’t see a whale or an elephant or anything. What did he see? “Dogs,” he says, and we assume the planet has gone to precisely that.

One day, Reza walks off the farm for a while and comes back late and spooked, and Remmy strains to her parents’ whispers. She awakens the next morning to the word “LEAVE” painted on the outside of their windows, looking in. This is when we see Reza’s intimidatingly large rifle. Wracked with worry, they hole up, staying quiet and away from the windows. “Is it his son?” Ilsa asks Reza, illuminating nothing. Eventually, Remmy sneaks out to check on her pet, ripping the band-aid off. Reza slings his rifle over his shoulder and heads out to take care of things as his wife and daughter sweat at home. Hours pass. A gunshot cracks in the distance. Who fired it? Who received it?

The answer arrives soon enough: A large man named Jerry (Ismael Cruz Cordova) arrives, and after he shrugs off a knife in the thigh courtesy Ilsa, he wins a scuffle. There’s talk between them about the claim to the settlement, and if we remain vague on the subject, it’s only because the movie is also only slightly less vague on it. They can come to a compromise, Jerry insists. It’s uneasy, especially the part where they bury Reza under a rock pile up on the hill. Little Remmy counts the days with hashmarks in the window filth as Jerry and Ilsa tend to the farm. Remmy stumbles upon a jaunty little robot that’s a metal crate with legs. She befriends it and names it Steve.

Our call? Skip it! Prince and Free nearly make Settlers worth a watch, but the film never finds its focus or establishes much dramatic drive.