To those old enough to remember, the launching of any American spacecraft used to be an exciting thing -- whether it involved the old Apollo, Gemini or Mercury missions or the relatively more current space shuttle flights. People would be glued to their seats watching the proceedings unfold, and even if there was a delay -- a hold in the countdown pattern for instance -- the suspense and anticipation kept things thrilling.
Perhaps writer/director Rand Ravich was trying to evoke that same suspenseful hold pattern in his first feature film, "The Astronaut's Wife," a thriller wannabe that builds its suspense so slowly that by the time the ludicrous ending finally arrives, you'll be wondering why you were so patient.
A visually stylistic but essentially empty combination of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Devil's Advocate," the film simply doesn't deliver what the audience expects from it and consequently, never achieves liftoff.
Many films occasionally borrow bits and pieces from others, and if they use such material in an imaginative or at least relatively new fashion, such harvesting isn't always completely objectionable. For instance, the fact that the similarly plotted "Rosemary's Baby" is three decades old means it was ripe for the picking.
Yet this film has stripped so many of its elements -- the New York couple, the friend's suicide, the pregnant woman's growing paranoia, and, of course, the husband impregnating the wife with anything but a bundle of joy -- that no matter how many weeds have been pulled and how much fresh paint has been applied, we can still see the original, creepy structure underneath.
Of course, today's audience will more likely see the similarity to "The Devil's Advocate" -- where a young New York-based wife gets paranoid and then goes crazy over supernatural occurrences involving her husband -- and it's surprising that lead actress Charlize Theron ("Mighty Joe Young," "Celebrity") chose to appear in both films.
To be fair, she's mostly credible in the role -- and is certainly easy on the eyes -- but doesn't quite manage to elicit as much audience sympathy as needed to pull off some of the more dramatic moments required of her. Ravich's lethargic and underdeveloped script doesn't help her any, either. Nonetheless, the similarity to her "Devil's Advocate" character will ensure that many won't be able to shake the "been there, seen that" feeling while watching this film.
Whether portraying the "good guy" astronaut or "bad guy" husband Johnny Depp ("Ed Wood," "Edward Scissorhands") generates even less of an impression and makes one wonder about the choices this very talented performer has recently made (he also appeared in the absolutely atrocious "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"). Although he's similarly constrained by the slow- moving plot, his take on the character just isn't that credible, particularly after the predictable revelation about him is finally made.
Supporting performances, from the likes of Joe Morton ("Blues Brothers 2000," "Terminator 2: Judgement Day") as the nervous and even more paranoid NASA official and Clea Duvall ("Can't Hardly Wait," "The Faculty") as the compassionate sister, are decent, but similarly underwritten.
That's the film's biggest problem. Ravich (who previously wrote "Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh") never takes his characters far enough in their development or subsequent behavior. In making this sort of thriller, one of two approaches can be taken. First, we can be privy (as can the characters) about the others' motivations, and the tension then comes from knowing, for instance, that the killer is on the loose and coming after the heroine. That's the old "cat and mouse" plot.
The other, and more effective way, though, is to keep all of the characters shaded in various levels of "grayness." In this film that doesn't happen and we know the final facts way too early -- despite some earlier, but meager attempts to mislead us. Yet Ravich keeps the film plodding along with clearly delineated characters in the misguided belief that he doesn't need to ratchet up the suspense factor to keep us scared, intrigued, or least partially interested.
If the suspense factor is to be left idling, then the audience must be nebulous about the characters, their behavior, and ultimate motives (the overall gray quality). For this film, I wanted to worry that Jillian really may have been going crazy via perfect -- and I mean perfect -- explanations of her concerns/paranoia. That same holds true for Reese possibly being an actual escaped lunatic (since, after all, his "evidence" never seems credible enough, thus having a mental ward staff after him would have been a nice touch) and that Spencer may or may not be just a concerned husband right up until the last moment.
While I assume that most of that was Ravich's goal -- and to his credit he does try to accomplish some of that -- the end result is a thriller that just isn't that thrilling. And when the film finally reveals all of the explanatory details toward the end, it simply becomes laughably bad, particularly since we never had the chance to develop a vested interest in any of the characters or the story.
Although it's not extremely irritating or painfully bad (despite a few cringe-inducing bits of dialogue), the film is too predictable, slow and not involving enough to come anywhere close to earning a recommendation (which must have been New Line's reaction since they opted not to screen it in advance for the critics).
More akin to sitting and waiting for a delayed flight at an airport gate than eagerly anticipating the launch of a craft that's primed to soar to new heights, "The Astronaut's Wife" clearly isn't "Rosemary's Baby. And although it sets up the makings for a sequel, don't hold your breath waiting to see "Twin Sons of An Astronaut's Wife" anytime soon. We give the film just a 3 out of 10.
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