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Film: The Astronaut’s Wife
Year: 1999
Director: Rand Ravich
Writer: Rand Ravich
Starring: Charlize Theron, Johnny Depp and Joe Morton
Review:
This was a film that I vaguely remember coming out, but I didn’t see it until years later. I would have been 12 years old in 1999. I would be unable to drive so unless it caught my attention to rent, it went unnoticed. This was watched since it was in the Horror Show Guide encyclopedia that I’m working through. My rewatch was done with my wife, Jaime, for our podcast, Depp Dive: A Depper Look at Johnny’s Feature Filmography.
Synopsis: after an explosion in space and after a two-minute radio-out period, two astronauts return home to their wives. They’re not quite the same as they were though.
We start this by getting to know our main couple. One of the astronauts from the synopsis is Commander Spencer Armacost (Johnny Depp, and he’s married to an elementary school teacher, Jillian (Charlize Theron). He is about to go on a mission into space. Jillian is proud and terrified but being strong to help steal his nerves. Spencer is going up with Capt. Alex Streck (Nick Cassavetes).
Things are going smoothly until a night that Jillian is cooking dinner for her and her sister, Nan (Clea DuVall). A news report catches her eye. NASA lost radio contact with the crew. They then send Sherman Reese (Joe Morton). Jillian wants more information, but they’re limited to what they can share. She is taken to a room to wait with Alex’s wife, Natalie (Donna Murphy). What we learn is that for 2 minutes, they lost contact and there was an explosion.
They return safe to Earth and go back to living their lives. Dr. Patraba (Samantha Eggar) and her team oversee confirming that they are healthy. All the tests are coming back healthy. As the synopsis states though, there is something off about both. The other couple seem to bicker constantly. Spencer decides he no longer wants to be a pilot, which was his dream from the beginning. He now wants to move to New York City to be an executive for an aeronautics company. We learn that this city was one he used to hate and this position is something he knows nothing about.
Jillian cannot prove what her fears are though. She thinks there is something off about her husband. She becomes pregnant and learns that she is having twins. She also has a history of mental illness so she is distrustful of her thoughts. It doesn’t help that Natalie does something during a party that rocks everyone to the core. She has to figure out the truth and if Spencer is still truly the man she married, or did something happen during the brief time in space.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is that I’m glad that I gave this movie a rewatch. I knew that it has solid premises. It isn’t one that is new. I’ve seen other films where we have an unreliable narrator, having someone who is pregnant and distrustful of things around her. This feels like it is a combination of Rosemary’s Baby with Village of the Damned.
With that all set up, where I want to delve first would be in our lead character of Jillian. We learn through things with her sister and her talking to a doctor that she had a dark stretch. She was suicidal and Spencer was there for her. I do like setting that up. Nan loves him and thinks that her sister is so lucky for having met him. That helps with the tension here since it confirms that we might not be able to trust her. There is also pregnancy brain, which Jaime has acknowledged me. That also is contributing to what she thinks.
Where I then want to go is bringing back up the connection with Village of the Damned. Before getting into that more, I love that this movie confirms what is happening here. What works even better for what I’ve already discussed with Jillian, it takes a long stretch before its reveal. That is good to build that tension and make us consider that our lead is insane. What we’re getting here is like the older movie that I’ve been referencing. They are in the womb, but we see that they might have powers or at least, a hive mind. That works for me.
Let me then shift away from the story to discuss the acting. I thought that Theron was solid here. It is interesting that this is like her role in The Devil’s Advocate. The only difference is that instead of making her a secondary character, we are following her instead. She’s good at showing what is needed for the role. Depp is in a more subdued role for him. He is more brooding and shows up at different times which makes it creepy. Morton is solid as the one who needs to convince Jillian before it is too late. DuVall works in her role along with Murphy, Cassavetes, Eggar, Gary Grubbs and Tom Noonan. No one is great here, but they work for what is needed.
All that is left then is filmmaking. I thought that the cinematography was good. They do good things when Jillian gets disoriented. It make us feel that way as well. How they frame things work as well. How this is shot works. We don’t get much in the way of effects. It also isn’t that type of movie. I will say, there is something at the end that didn’t look great and doesn’t hold up now. That would be the only gripe. Other than that, the soundtrack fit what was needed.
In conclusion, this movie is better than I remember it being. I don’t think that it is great though still. The story is fine. An issue there is that this is a story that has been done before, just better. I still like combining elements for different things here. The acting is solid. Theron leading the way with a solid cast around her. This is made well enough. The cinematography and framing leading the way there. There are decent things with the effects, but there is CGI that doesn’t hold up. This is a forgettable movie that is still solid if you like these types.
My Rating: 6.5 out of 10