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Ervell E. Menezes
finds Rand Ravich’s The Astronaut’s Wife
engrossing and watchable THE hazards of outer space is a good take off point for the psychological drama in The Astronaut’s Wife. And horror follows in true Hitchcockian style. Astronaut Spencer Armacost (Johnny Depp) and Jillian (Charlize Theron) are a normal, happy American middle class couple. But after a two-minute mishap in space, when two astronauts leave the space shuttle to undertake repairs, they are rescued. Capt Alex Streck (Nick Cassavetes) is the other astronaut. But when they return to earth, neither astronaut is the same. The two-minute break has had a deadly impact on them.
Debutant director Rand Ravich uses this incident to improvise. First Capt Streck behaves oddly and before long, drops dead. His wife Natalie (Donna Murphy) commits suicide. It is now the turn of Spencer to display his weird tendencies. Jillian is pregnant and with twins and somehow can’t take it. Shades of Rosemary’s Baby, horror creeps in and Spencer gets homicidal. Jillain’s sister Nan (Clea DuVall) is the first victim. Is the next one Jillian? By now, the film is enveloped in an aura of mystery. Is it some alien causing these changes? And why do pregnant women (Natalie too was pregnant with twins) always bear the brunt of it? This element of women being at the receiving end is enough reason for retaliation and the usual Hollywood formula of a one-woman army. Ravish’s screenplay is imaginative but lacks dramatic relief and cinematographer Allain Davian goes to town with some exotic aerial shots. George Clinton’s music is another embellishment and is an important factor in the horror sequences. Tension builds up to a dramatic climax after 100 minutes of engrossing fare, in which both Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron (looking very different in a cropped hairdo) put in convincing performances. Joe Morton as the man from NASA and Clea DuVall provide good cameos in this quite watchable horror drama.
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