Spielberg makes a boy’s friendship with a homesick alien funny, tender and worth taking seriously. The music sometimes tells us more than we need, but the children and the creature make its sentiment feel deserved.
Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a funny, deeply affecting family film whose kindness never feels like a duty. We would recommend it even to those usually suspicious of children befriending unusual creatures. Melissa Mathison’s screenplay takes the friendship seriously without requiring Elliott or his alien companion to become solemn representatives of human goodness. The visitor wants to go home, a wish simple enough for a child to understand, and the film gives that wish the attention it deserves.
Henry Thomas is the crucial choice as Elliott: he makes concern for the alien seem immediate and practical, without presenting it as precocious wisdom. We were moved more than we expected by the boy’s affection for this frightened visitor. Thomas gives the friendship such conviction that the creature’s unfamiliarity soon ceases to be the most interesting thing about him. Drew Barrymore’s Gertie and Robert MacNaughton’s Michael help keep the children funny and distinct, each worth watching in their own right.
The creature itself is a considerable achievement because we can take an interest in him beyond wondering how he was made. The effects make his gentleness convincing, giving Thomas a companion we can believe he would care about. The film’s humour also allows him to be odd without making him merely a joke. Spielberg leaves room for affection to develop, which is essential in a family fantasy that asks us to care about someone so unfamiliar.
Allen Daviau’s cinematography gives suburban childhood enough visual interest to hold its own beside the visitor. The human setting remains worth looking at; the film does not become a wait for another sight of the alien. James D. Bissell’s production design helps make that setting feel inhabited by children, with lives that extend beyond this extraordinary encounter. We believe in the ordinary surroundings, and that gives Spielberg somewhere credible to put a creature who could so easily have seemed like an interruption.
Carol Littleton’s editing keeps the children central even when the effects might reasonably claim our attention. That balance is one reason the film’s treatment of divorce and dislocation feels personal: the fantasy does not require childhood’s unhappiness to disappear. Mathison also understands the usefulness of a joke when a scene threatens to become too reverent about innocence. Against the family-adventure habit of hurrying towards the next attraction, this attention to how children feel is a substantial virtue.
John Williams’s score occasionally pushes too hard. Its familiarity can be comforting, but there are passages when the music tells us how to feel with an insistence the performances do not need. Spielberg sometimes seems anxious that we might miss just how much we ought to care, when Thomas has already made the point. These are moments of overstatement, and they briefly make us conscious of being coaxed towards a response we were having quite willingly.
The U certificate should not be mistaken for a promise of an emotionally undemanding evening. There is sadness here, and the affection makes it harder to keep at a distance. Choose it for family viewing, but leave the adults a little time afterwards before asking what they thought.
