A retrospective by Brooks Rich
Carpenter is one of my favorite directors but is a good example of a director having an incredible run for a while and then completely tanking, producing critical failure after critical failure. Rob Reiner is another example of a director like this. But I'm not here to talk about one of Carpenter's failures. I'm here to talk about his fantastic science fiction drama from 1984, Starman.Karen Allen is a woman mourning her recently deceased husband, played by an Oscar-nominated Jeff Bridges. One day an alien arrives in her house and takes the form of her husband. He has to make it to Arizona from where they are in Wisconsin in three days or he'll die. Of course, the government is hot on their trail. But instead of being a chase film, Starman is much more than that. It's really about the connection created between the two main characters and how we come to terms with our place in the universe.
Carpenter, for the most part, is a very pessimistic director. The majority of his career has been spent in the horror genre – making films like Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness and his two best films, Halloween and The Thing. These are deeply dark films with either ambiguous endings or straight up bleak tragic endings. Starman is Carpenter's most positive film, having an optimistic view of the human race by the end of it. Despite its rather bittersweet ending (which I won't spoil here), there's still a feeling of hope.
The beating heart of this film is Allen and Bridges. They are stunning together and make us completely buy into the connection between the grieving widow and the alien disguised as her lost husband. We feel every moment of their developing relationship. In my opinion, this is the Carpenter film with the strongest performances. Don't get me wrong – I love Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, and I am right there with the guys in The Thing – but Allen and Bridges are something special in this. I see why Bridges was nominated, and if not for a great performance from F. Murray Abraham in Amadeus, Bridges would have won the Oscar.
I give this film the highest recommendation I can. I hate that it's kind of been forgotten by time. I don't understand that at all. Perhaps people associate Carpenter with the horror genre and so they steer clear of this film. This is not a horror film. Go out and rent it. You can rent it fairly cheap from most streaming services.
Carpenter, for the most part, is a very pessimistic director. The majority of his career has been spent in the horror genre – making films like Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness and his two best films, Halloween and The Thing. These are deeply dark films with either ambiguous endings or straight up bleak tragic endings. Starman is Carpenter's most positive film, having an optimistic view of the human race by the end of it. Despite its rather bittersweet ending (which I won't spoil here), there's still a feeling of hope.
The beating heart of this film is Allen and Bridges. They are stunning together and make us completely buy into the connection between the grieving widow and the alien disguised as her lost husband. We feel every moment of their developing relationship. In my opinion, this is the Carpenter film with the strongest performances. Don't get me wrong – I love Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, and I am right there with the guys in The Thing – but Allen and Bridges are something special in this. I see why Bridges was nominated, and if not for a great performance from F. Murray Abraham in Amadeus, Bridges would have won the Oscar.
I give this film the highest recommendation I can. I hate that it's kind of been forgotten by time. I don't understand that at all. Perhaps people associate Carpenter with the horror genre and so they steer clear of this film. This is not a horror film. Go out and rent it. You can rent it fairly cheap from most streaming services.
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