Astronaut's Wife, The (1999)

reviewed by
Alex Ioshpe


DIRECTED BY: Rand Ravich
WRITTEN BY: Rand Ravich
CAST: Charlize Theron, Johnny Depp, Joe Morton, Joe Morton, Joe Morton
MPAA: Rated R for violence, language and a strong scene of sexuality.
Runtime: USA:109
- RATING: 8/10
"He is not your husband anymore.."  

The film is as good as or better than the average Hollywood release. It's scary. It's well-acted. It's filmed with a degree of flash and elegance -- chilly, muted, symbolic and refreshingly free from cheap shocks. It is a stylish and feverishly beautiful psychological thriller with several interesting science fiction elements.

Commander Spencer Armacost and his wife Jillian (Depp and Theron) are an extraordinarily close and happy couple, until something goes wrong during what should have been a routine shuttle mission. NASA mysteriously loses contact with Armacost and his co-pilot, Captain Alex Streck (Nick Cassavettes) for a full two minutes, and when the shuttle is brought down both men are unconscious. Armacaost appears unhurt, but Streck has suffered a heart attack and later dies under disturbing circumstances. The whole business leaves Jillian, who has a troubling history of mental unbalance, in an emotionally fragile state, as does Armacost's uncharacteristic decision to retire from flying and take an executive position at a New York City-based aerospace company. Already feeling isolated and lonely, Jillian then learns that she's pregnant. Is her increasing conviction that her husband isn't the man he used to be a matter of hormonal swings and stress-induced paranoia, or did something unimagin! ably awful happen to Armacost out in the cold void of space?

This is an analogy to Roman Polanski's horror classic "Rosemary's Baby", and director Rand Ravich directs pretty much in the same fashion, where the most important element is the surrealism -- you'll be walking along side the main characters on the blurry line between dream and reality. The symbolism is thick and heavy, with multiple references to dual identities and insensitive husbands. The film is also incredibly beautiful. Its graceful cinematography, its flashy editing and haunting musical score are all part of a wonderfully rich atmosphere.

The two leads are both extraordinary and both at their right place. Johnny Depp is convincing both as the "true American hero" at the beginning and as the mysterious entity after the "accident". He is capable of hiding the beast within. Charlize Theron is likewise incredible. The enormous emotional core of the script is challenging and requires a very serious, talented actress. Theron is obviously up to it. The character reminds us about Mia Farrow's ("Rosemary's Baby")character with the same haircut and problems -- she gets pregnant with twins and begins to wonder what exactly she is carrying. Unfortunately Ravich didn't take her far enough from her previous film and it looks like she's still playing the role of Keanu Reeve's wife in "The Devil's Advocate."

It's very artistic, very stylish, but regrettably also rather stereotypical. For most of the time the film is feverishly interesting because nothing is kept too obvious. Everything is raptured in mystery, which makes it completely unpredictable. By the end of the film, when it's time for dazzling the audience with a worthy ending, the director changes his rhythm and selects the most primitive and disappointing resolution of all -- the typical Hollywood brain-killer, reminding about the infinite "X-Files"-episodes -- deluding, mysterious and very primitive underneath. Absolutely nothing is explained. What did the alien intelligence actually want? What is their objective? What actually happened? You almost expect "TO BE CONTINUED.." to appear on the ending credits. This is truly a fatal error that creates a rather anticlimactic atmosphere. But even though it happens at the very end, and everything else is almost flawless, it's hard to enjoy the film after watching it through. An! d it doesn't hold anything of special interest to watch it twice. It's certainly better than the average science fiction cliché released every year, but hardly anything else.


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