The Astronaut's Wife

The Astronaut’s Wife is a movie that could’ve only been made at a specific time.  That’s probably because it’s a mashup of two other movies that could’ve only been made at a specific time, Species and The Devil’s Advocate.  The common denominator?  They’re sexy thrillers.  In the late 90’s sexy thrillers took their last breath as viable box office material and were very quickly outcast into mid-level B movie territory.  So towards the end of the run there were a few weird spin-offs in a curious attempt to keep this beloved (by some) subgenre alive.

But before we get to Wife let’s take a look at the plots to its direct antecedents:

Species is about an alien grown in a lab that escapes.  She must procreate in order to make more aliens so her race can take over the earth.  The sexy part is the alien is maliciously driven to have sex and the thrilling part is there’s a posse out to stop her. (By the way I kinda like the sequel better)

The Devil’s Advocate involves a relatively small town Florida lawyer who accepts a job offer from a big time NYC firm.  He eventually comes to realize that his boss is Satan who’s been grooming him to be his second in command in Hell.  The sexy part is Lucifer uses sex a lot to seduce the young lawyer and the thrilling part is the Devil is your fucking villain who our protagonist must confront.

Now The Astronaut’s Wife deals with despicable pirate, er I mean astronaut, Spencer (Johnny Depp (Platoon)), who goes into space only to be body snatched by an alien.  Everyone knows something happened up there because there was radio silence for two minutes but neither Spencer nor his colleague, who was with him, will talk about it.  When Spencer gets back home to Florida he decides to take a big exec job in NYC so he and his wife Jill (Charlize Theron (Men of Honor)) move there.  Jill notices her husband has sex differently than before, he’s more aggressive and she becomes pregnant with twins.  Later she’s visited by a disgraced NASA guy who tells her that Spencer isn’t her husband anymore and the babies she’s carrying are potentially dangerous.  Jill must decide what to do about the twins and her husband.

So you can see where Species and The Devil’s Advocate intersect with an alien trying to impregnate a human to trigger world domination and a supernatural force coercing a human to do evil things.  All three movies are played totally straight too with the filmmakers giving their best shots at winning over the audience with their ideas.  And it’s worth noting that The Astronaut’s Wife did come out after both Species and The Devil’s Advocate and that in Advocate Charlize Theron amazingly plays the protagonist’s wife as well.

As for Wife itself there isn’t a whole lot to say.  Thrills are a bit light until the third act when Jill starts to completely accept that Spencer is an alien now.  Before that the wheels tend to spin with Jill having trouble acclimating to life in the big city and worrying about relapsing into depression which she was hospitalized for in the past.  What’s maybe kinda strange is Spencer doesn’t act creepy or give himself away at all until much later in the film.  Sure he’s more serious than we saw him during the scene and a half pre-alien takeover but for the first two thirds he’s attentive to his wife and caring about the twins on the way.  It’s only after the NASA guy exposes him that he starts to turn sinister.  So if it weren’t for that the alien’s entire operation would’ve gone off without a hitch.

Theron gives it her all in this which is awesome to watch.  She throws herself into all of the suspicious notions, heart crushing discoveries and dismal realizations she comes up against.  One scene in particular where she’s holding pills in her hand that will kill the twins inside her and has to decide if she wants to go through with it is some of her best work.  She’s shaking and sobbing and completely distraught.  The scene is powerful because she’s pretty sure but not 100% sure that her babies are aliens.  So if she takes the pills she could be preventing an alien invasion or she could be murdering her own children.  It’s heavy shit.

And the big sex scene where Spencer lays his seed is done in a cool way.  Jill and Spencer are at a gala at a museum (I think) and they go off around a corner to do the dirty.  Jill wants to know what happened in space during the radio blackout and Spencer starts to tell her.  As he describes the event (using some awful hack dialogue) he keeps checking her pulse and he kisses her and caresses her and then they go at it.  What’s impressive is it’s all one long shot zooming in and following Spencer’s hand around Jill’s body and changing angles and finally turning ninety degrees to make it look like they’re lying on a bed.  Nice work from Allen Daviau who shot ET, The Color Purple, Congo and was second unit on Temple of Doom.

This was the only thing aside from a short that Rand Ravich ever directed.  He also wrote this, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (it’s been too long since I’ve seen it to comment) and created, produced and wrote some TV.  With Wife he does a solid job and even manages to piece together a few standout scenes like the ones I mentioned above.  He also goes for an extremely ballsy ending which I gotta respect the man for.  Sorry but you’re gonna have to watch the movie to find out (or you could just look it up on the webbernet, but what’s the fun in that?)

Ravich may not have had a second chance at a Hollywood picture because this bombed big time.  It didn’t even come close to making its money back.  I wouldn’t say that’s unfair because overall this isn’t something very original or accomplished on a technical level or plain good exactly.  But with other films at the time faring better (like Species and Advocate) it should’ve at least broke even.  It may not be as good as either of the two movies it imitates but it’s enjoyable enough.  And if you’re into sexy thrillers but looking for a new twist then I’d recommend it.

One thing that’s really annoying though is the incredibly bland title.  It was totally a placeholder until Ravich could come up with something better.  I kinda can’t believe the movie got released that way.  Oh well.