Starman (1984)

It took a gradual buildup of information trickling to me over the years to get me interested in this flick. Moderately good reception. The mid-'80s. Sci-fi. Romance. Jeff Bridges, with an Oscar nod. John Carpenter. Eventually, I got tired of seeing the title without knowing the rest.

Paranoid officials fire missiles at an alien ship, which crash-lands in the Wisconsin wilderness. The one alien aboard (Jeff Bridges) enters the nearest house, finds photos and DNA of a dead man, and assumes the man's shape, accidentally freaking out the man's widow, Jenny (Karen Allen). He strong-arms Jenny into helping him travel to Barrington Crater, site of a previous ET visit, within three days. It's not just the hostile government that worries him; apparently, something in the atmosphere is toxic to him, or else he's missing something vital. Jenny initially tries to escape her kidnapper but develops sympathy and eventually...well, see a hint in my first paragraph.

The other focal character is SETI researcher Mark (Charles Martin Smith), the first to determine that former UFO is an ET spacecraft. He does not see eye to eye with the NSA director (Richard Jaeckel), who's determined to hunt down and capture if not immediately kill the visitor. Will Mark put his career on the line for the sake of being a gentleman? I couldn't help thinking of the same year's Splash.

To the best of my recollection, nobody actually calls the alien "Starman." Or any other name, except when Jenny briefly mistakes him for her husband. Perhaps individual names aren't a thing in his world, or perhaps his name is unpronounceable to humans. At any rate, his anonymity makes their interactions all the more awkward.

Stories about aliens posing as humans tend to contain either horror or comedy. This one comes closer to the latter, what with the alien's learning curve. Having listened to a Voyager Golden Record (his reason for showing up in the first place), he knows about 200 accented English words before arrival. He learns fast and remembers perfectly, but his imitative moves tend to miss a contextual nuance. Coming from an alleged utopia doesn't help.

Apart from shapeshifting, the alien has some manner of telekinesis, tho he uses it strictly out of necessity, possibly aware that humans can't. The only technology he takes from the wreckage is a set of silvery marbles that let him do numerous things, from distant messaging to healing. He has to use those even more sparingly, because each is good for just one use.

I found it a little odd that Bridges was up for an Academy Award for this, seeing as his facial expression seldom varies. But that didn't stop Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade. Besides, Bridges does have notably gawky mannerisms, suggesting a different natural form. And the alien ultimately shows emotion at key moments. Still no match for F. Murray Abraham in Amadeus.

Probably the main hangup you're likely to have pertains to the intimate relationship between Jenny and the alien. It's not Stockholm syndrome, because he no longer forces her along by the time it gets serious. Love is a new thing to him, and so, I assume, is lust of this sort. That doesn't make it beautiful. You may very well find it unintentionally creepy rather than heartwarming. At any rate, he knows going in that it can't end happily: She can no more survive on his home planet than vice versa.

But whether or not you approve what the heroes do, you can appreciate the surge in their feelings, which didn't come from nowhere. It's a pretty interesting story, if not especially exploratory or quick for its 115 minutes. I can see how it would launch a TV series, however fleeting.