Mix two parts Species 2 "they came to breed," with the classic horror film Rosemary's Baby about the birth of Satan's love-child, and you have the basic idea behind New Line Cinema's The Astronaut's Wife. Charlize Theron (Mighty Joe Young) stars as Jillian Armacost, the wife of NASA astronaut Spencer Armacost (Johnny Depp, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas). During an enigmatic explosion while repairing an orbiting satellite, Spencer Armacost and his astronaut companion Alex Streck (Nick Cassavetes) are rendered incommunicado with Earth for two minutes. After being rushed back to Earth, neither astronaut will disclose the events of those missing two minutes, but it was creepy enough that Armacost resigns from NASA to pursue an executive position for a firm in New York City that designs military planes. Alex Streck, on the other hand, dies mysteriously, and his wife (Donna Murphy, Star Trek: Insurrection) commits suicide in one of the film's most potent scenes.
Now in NYC, Jillian not only has trouble making the adjustment to urban life, but her paranoia about her husband grows after he brutally rapes her one night after a party. Is her subsequent prenatal condition merely causing her to relapse into a previous bout of depression for which she was hospitalized, or has her husband come back inalienably altered by those eerie events in space?
The film at first toys with this idea, and Johnny Depp portrays Spencer Armacost ambiguously enough to make you wonder, too, but it's not long before the inevitable ending is telegraphed to all. In the meantime, however, the audience is treated to plenty of creepy, memorable images that help tell the story in a way that is compelling. Among them is a scene where Spencer Armacost stands in front of a huge American flag to sign autographs for a crowd that has crowned him their hero--yet the knowing film-goer can't help but wonder if Armacost is really here to subvert the American way of life. An even more indelible image is found later in the film when Jill appears threatened by an old radio that may or may not be her husband's communication link to alien life-forms. It looks and sounds just like a radio should, but the fleeting glances and nervous attention she gives to it make it so much hauntingly more. Overall, The Astronaut's Wife is also surprisingly free of over-blown effects, and depends largely on camera angles, spooky insinuations, and good old-fashioned acting to create its effective atmosphere. This it does well at times, but not enough to distinguish itself from a number of similarly styled films over the years.
Unfortunately, this lack of distinction proves to be the film's greatest downfall. Whereas some effort was made to distinguish this film from others of its ilk, it finds itself settling too quickly into the typical thriller-isms. Unlike the performances in this year's surprise hit The Sixth Sense, the acting across the board here is unremarkable. Johnny Depp's established talent is utterly wasted, and Charlize Theron fares only a little better as the wife who is swamped by feelings that she may or may not be an incubator for twin alien life-forms. The poor pace, especially for a thriller, makes for an overlong movie that bogs down hither and thither, taking its sweet time to get to the real action. The puzzling events that ensue could have be more engaging if better scripted, and, worst of all, the ending proves to be completely predictable and utterly disappointing. The story and the creative filming deserved better. In the end, The Astronaut's Wife will neither entice you out of orbit nor into your local video store for a second viewing.
Steven S. Baldwin 9/19/99
