The Astronaut's Wife (1999)
Blair Brown, Charlize Theron, Clea DuVall, Cole Sprouse, Donna Murphy ... (see more) , Dylan Sprouse , Joe Morton , Johnny Depp , Nick Cassavetes
An intriguingly creepy premise but failed execution marks this stylish and ultimately bland thriller about a pretty, young woman whose pretty, young astronaut husband comes back from his most recent space mission a little... odd. Before that fated space trip, Spencer (Johnny Depp) and Jillian (Charl... (read more) An intriguingly creepy premise but failed execution marks this stylish and ultimately bland thriller about a pretty, young woman whose pretty, young astronaut husband comes back from his most recent space mission a little... odd. Before that fated space trip, Spencer (Johnny Depp) and Jillian (Charlize Theron) were a sunny, happy couple with matching blonde hairdos and a predilection for romping in the sack from extremely clever camera angles. However, after a communications blackout brings Spencer and his partner back down to earth prematurely, things are a little... peculiar. Spencer's partner goes bonkers and has a heart attack; on top of that, the partner's wife takes a fatal shower with a plugged-in radio. Getting out of the space biz, Spencer accepts a job as a corporate exec in New York, and as a welcome to the Big Apple for his comely wife, he molests her at the company cocktail party. Soon enough, Jillian is pregnant, but as you might expect, this pregnancy (twins, don't you know) is a little... unusual. Writer-director Rand Ravich takes his sweet time getting from extremely obvious plot point A to even more obvious plot point B, stretching out the development particulars in mind-numbing, suspense-killing fashion. Even Joe Morton, as a sinisterly psychotic NASA official, can't liven things up--you know you're in bad thriller territory when the biggest scare comes from a light suddenly being switched off. Theron, sporting a Mia Farrow-Rosemary's Baby haircut, sleepwalks beautifully through the movie, but she did this role much, much better in The Devil's Advocate. Depp, with a cornpone Southern accent, is about as realistic as his peroxided hair. Ravich does the viewer no favors with a hackneyed ending straight out of a B-grade paperback horror novel in which the most shocking moment is Theron's sudden emergence as a brunette. With Blair Brown as a jaded socialite who offers to help out Theron by providing do-it-yourself abortion pills, and a lovely Donna Murphy as the suicidal wife who figures it all out before everyone else. --Mark Englehart
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R, 1 hr. 50 min.
Directed by:
Rand Ravich
Release Date: Aug 27, 1999
DVD Release Date: Feb 08, 2000
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Pretty disappointing. The idea was interesting and Charlize Theron and Johnny Depp are both great... but the whole thing just falls flat. It's really not thrilling, exciting or even very entertaining. It has a few intriguing moments, but not intrigui... (read more) Pretty disappointing. The idea was interesting and Charlize Theron and Johnny Depp are both great... but the whole thing just falls flat. It's really not thrilling, exciting or even very entertaining. It has a few intriguing moments, but not intriguing enough. A disappointing ending as well... but I saw the alternate ending too and that was even worse. All in all, just another one of those movies that just really isn't nearly as good as it should be.
Very creepy thriller not that type i movie you see twice. Johnny Depp and Charile Theron is great actors though.
Carey Grant stole the show. The rest of the movie would have been much more successful of the weak alien plot had been completely invented so Depp could get with Theron's sister.
Kinda creepy with an interesting twist at the end, but ultimately it's something of a let-down.
Good idea, with some good parts, but overall poor execution...so many cheesy lines and shots.
Right off the bat the one wife freaks out when they say they lost contact with them for 2 minutes after an explosion. "What does that mean?!?" She shrieks.... (read more) Good idea, with some good parts, but overall poor execution...so many cheesy lines and shots.
Right off the bat the one wife freaks out when they say they lost contact with them for 2 minutes after an explosion. "What does that mean?!?" She shrieks...well, he just told you they lost contact for two minutes...that's what it means. Overall, no one in this movie seemed to have any common sense. And the one guy that figured out what was happening was a crazy. And then the over the top dramatic shots, like when she's dropping the glass and it slowly drops to the ground and breaks...it just makes you roll your eyes. Then the ending with the children of the corn listening to their radios...not even Johnny Depp could save this one...
this one got some pretty bad ratings but i liked it a lot when it came out...granted i was still in middle school.
this movie's a lot better than people give it credit for, because you really have to take out the suspense and astronaut/space thing out of it to see what the film's really about, if that makes any sense. i'll let you figure it out, and we can talk ... (read more) this movie's a lot better than people give it credit for, because you really have to take out the suspense and astronaut/space thing out of it to see what the film's really about, if that makes any sense. i'll let you figure it out, and we can talk about it some day.
it's funny seeing charlize theron play two major roles where her character moves from florida to nyc, to have her life messed up. at least johnny depp passes off better as an astronaut than keanu as an attorney. charlize theron's acting in this is really frustrating to watch, but again, it plays a significant part of this movie if you take out the suspense and astronaut/space element.
"he's inside of me"
Critic Reviews
It's scary. It's well-acted. It's filmed with a degree of flash and elegance.full review
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