In a sentenceJeff Bridges makes being human look difficult, which seems fair enough
Voyager II is launched in 1977 carrying an invitation for other lifeforms to visit Earth. An alien visitor, Starman (Jeff Bridges), answers it and begins learning about human life. His story involves Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen) and Mark Shermin (Charles Martin Smith). The invitation promises a welcome, but understanding the people of Earth is another matter. The visitor has to discover how they behave and what they feel. His introduction to the planet becomes a romance, with human affection among the unfamiliar things he encounters and must learn to understand.
Plays from YouTube when you press play; nothing loads from them until then.
Jeff Bridges makes John Carpenter’s gentle alien romance worth forgiving for its predictable plot. Karen Allen gives the sentiment weight, and the film’s patience with its visitor keeps the familiar storytelling from becoming a serious obstacle.
Starman is a gentle, funny science-fiction romance whose predictable story is worth forgiving for Jeff Bridges. John Carpenter gives the alien visitor’s attempts to understand human life the attention they deserve. The premise offers few surprises, and he does not waste much effort pretending otherwise. The film asks us to care about someone who does not know how to be one of us, then gives its leading actor enough freedom to make that interesting.
Bridges makes the alien’s curiosity the reason to keep watching. His childlike performance could have become a collection of endearing habits, but there is enough seriousness in the learning to keep the comedy from taking over. We were moved by his efforts to understand human behaviour, because Bridges makes the visitor’s trust feel easily hurt. The performance allows affection to develop without insisting that everything an innocent creature does must be charming.
Karen Allen, as Jenny Hayden, is essential to making the romance work. She gives the feeling enough weight that we can believe in it even when the story asks for considerable indulgence. A less convincing partner would leave Bridges performing an engaging solo act, with everyone else waiting for his next discovery. Allen gives us a reason to care about the relationship, and Carpenter is wise to let the actors carry so much of it.
Donald M. Morgan’s cinematography helps us stay attentive to the performers, which is the right priority for this kind of science fiction. Daniel A. Lomino’s production design also supports the fantasy without competing too fiercely for our attention. Neither contribution is the main attraction, and that suits a romance this dependent on its cast. The film is most persuasive when we are watching the visitor learn, with nothing else demanding to be admired.
Marion Rothman’s editing allows the gentler comedy to register, though the pace cannot always conceal how familiar the plotting is. Jack Nitzsche’s music is effective at encouraging tenderness, less necessary when the performances have already persuaded us. There are stretches where the film gives its feeling more assistance than it needs. Still, Carpenter’s handling of the romance is sufficiently restrained that the sentiment rarely becomes an instruction to be moved.
Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans give the actors a romance worth playing, but too little else to surprise us. Too much is easy to anticipate, and some of the characterisation feels like the minimum required to get the story moving. A science-fiction romance need not keep producing surprises, but it does need difficulties that feel particular to these people. Here, Bridges often supplies the individuality that the writing has left out.
Carpenter understands how much interest there is in watching the visitor learn about people. The film’s kindness matters, especially when Bridges makes understanding another person look like something requiring effort. At 115 minutes, it takes a little longer than its simple story needs. Choose it for the company of its two leads; anyone hoping to be surprised should make other arrangements.
Most critics respond warmly to Starman as a science-fiction romance, with praise centred on Jeff Bridges’s performance as an alien learning about human life. His gentle, childlike manner gives the film much of its appeal, and the favourable reviews find humour and feeling in the romantic story. Carpenter’s restrained handling of emotion also earns appreciation, although Bridges is the clearest point of agreement among the positive notices.
The reservations concern the writing: even some admirers find the plotting predictable or one-dimensional. The spread is fairly wide, with Variety judging the film only partly successful and finding that its use of effective borrowed models leaves it short of originality. Time Out is the strongest dissenter, dismissing the science-fiction love story as weak; the divide is chiefly over how much the performances and emotional appeal compensate for a familiar story.
Jones describes the film as an engaging, funny, suspenseful and moving sci-fi romance. He particularly praises Jeff Bridges’s chance to stretch his acting talent as an alien learning about human life.
Read the full review →Ebert’s review is positive, finding the film an appealing romantic science-fiction story. He particularly praises Jeff Bridges’s performance as the alien visitor.
Read the full review →The critic gives the film a positive verdict, calling it appealing and humane despite some one-dimensional plotting. He particularly praises Jeff Bridges’s gentle, childlike performance as the alien.
Read the full review →The headline suggests a favorable view of the film, describing its alien character as ingratiating. It singles out Jeff Bridges’s performance, though the article text was inaccessible.
Read the full review →The issue identifies this as part of a review of three films, but the critic’s verdict is not available here. The page provides no specific praise or complaint about “Starman.”
Read the full review →The review finds the film only partly successful, despite its effective borrowed models. It praises those models but faults the film for lacking originality.
Read the full review →
A Matter of Life and DeathA romance that makes room for the impossible without forgetting ordinary human feeling.
Wings of DesireAnother outsider discovers that understanding human life requires more than watching it.
The Brother from Another Planet · not reviewed yetAn alien’s arrival makes familiar human behaviour look strange, funny and frequently unkind.
The Iron GiantA visitor’s innocence gives this science-fiction friendship its humour and its considerable feeling.
The LunchboxFor the patient romance, and the care taken over two people learning about each other.
Free account
Two lists that know where things are streaming, collections you can share, your own score beside ours, and Discover that remembers what you have seen.
