Film

The Astronaut's Wife (1999)

Director: Rand Ravich

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Astronaut Depp returns to Earth after a routine satellite repair mission, during which he and his partner Cassavetes lost radio contact with NASA for two mysterious minutes. Perplexed and hurt by her husband's refusal to talk about what happened, Depp's wife, Florida schoolteacher Theron, is further unsettled by the death, from a stroke, of his partner. Then, shortly before the dead man's wife commits suicide, she tells Theron cryptically: 'He's hiding inside me.' Abandoning the space program, flyboy Depp takes a lucrative job with a NY aerospace firm with military interests. Finding herself pregnant with twins, Theron feels isolated and afraid. Is she carrying extra-terrestrial parasites? Long on atmosphere but short on momentum, the meandering plot is fleshed out by Theron's instinctive yet delicately nuanced performance - she is, by turns, vulnerable, sympathetically unhinged and fiercely strongwilled. Ravich's slick direction fills the antiseptic interiors of the couple's Manhattan designer apartment with an edgy, brooding menace, but regrettably the slow burn suspense is extinguished when too much is revealed at just the wrong moment.

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