Cinema Uprising by Steve Evans
The Astronaut's Wife Written and directed by: Rand Ravich. Starring Johnny Depp, Charlize Theron, Joe Morton, Nick Cassavettes and Blair Brown.
The pitch: Rosemary's Baby meets E.T. in this trashy exploitation flick apparently designed to scare the bejabbers out of pregnant women and bore everyone else.
Affecting a suthern accent, a bleach-blond Depp sleepwalks his way through the role of a shuttle astronaut who, while orbiting Earth, loses contact with NASA for two minutes. He returns to Florida…a changed man.
His wife, the lovely but bland Theron, senses something is wrong, even though she faithfully returns to her teaching job each day at the local elementary school. But all is not well. Depp's fellow crewman, Cassavettes, drops dead a week later at a party as his wife stares in horror. Did something happen to the astronauts during those two minutes of silence in space? Why, hell yes, we've got another 90 minutes to go. [Side note Part I: Cassavettes apparently needed some quick cash to get on with his successful career as an independent filmmaker. He's following in his dad's footsteps. The late John Cassavettes also starred, from time to time, in some equally cheesy, low-rent movies (check out Two Minute Warning) to pay the bills in between his own independent projects. Side note Part II: this basic storyline was handled with much more suspense in I Married a Monster From Outer Space (1955).]
Okay. At Cinema Uprising we would never reveal key plot points in a good movie: By the end of Act I, Cassavettes' wife commits suicide, which does little to reassure Theron. Unfazed by all the sudden death, Depp picks the only sensible solution that can propel the plot – he quits his NASA job for a gig with a major engineering firm, packs up his wife, cuts out of Florida and moves to New York. This worries Theron even more, since she did the same thing with Keanu Reeves two years ago in The Devil's Advocate. In his new job, Depp designs amazingly complex aircraft for a military contract, raking in scads of green money. Pretty soon he's kissing corporate ass at parties and doing an awkward bumpity-bump with his wife in public places. Next thing we know, Theron is taking a pregnancy test in the restroom stall at her new school. (As any would-be parent knows, those tests are supposed to be taken first thing in the morning. Or did Mrs. Astronaut drive all the way to work just to pee?)
Does it matter? Yes. In a movie already swollen with improbabilities, the incorrect administration of a pregnancy test might seem like a minor sin, but we beg to differ. We believe people deserve more for their $7 tickets than a movie that actively defies their intelligence. Worse, we're appalled that a film would dare to exploit a woman's greatest fear – that she might give birth to Webster.
Theron doesn't have it quite so bad. The poor woman eventually gloms to the fact that she's carrying twins. And Depp seems to take a preternaturally unusual interest in their safety. One of Depp's former NASA associates tries to warn the expectant mommy that she's carrying a heap o' trouble, times two. Problem is, the doomsayer is played by Joe Morton, a character actor who gets killed in practically all his movies. Who's going to believe him? Or the preposterous ending, with cheap-looking special effects and Theron acting like she's swallowed enough Quaaludes that somebody ought to call poison control.
Stoned, sedentary or fast asleep, The Astronaut's Wife is still a space cadet.
Rated R for language and uncomfortable-looking sex.
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