The Astronaut's Wife Blu-ray offers solid video and audio, but overall it's a mediocre Blu-ray release
They were the perfect all-American couple: a courageous, honored NASA astronaut and his beautiful school-teacher wife. They were passionately in love, so connected they could sense each other even when he was floating in space and she was two hundred thousand miles below. And in two minutes it all turned to inexplicable horror. For two minutes, astronaut Spencer Armacost loses total consciousness while on a routine space shuttle mission, returning home just barely alive and a bewildered hero. The President, the nation, and his friends celebrate his safe return, but to his wife Jillian something seems strangely amiss from the moment he returns to Earth.
Alright, relax. I'll concede. The Astronaut's Wife isn't Rosemary's Baby in Space. It inches awfully close,
though. So close that it invites a host of unfavorable comparisons to Roman Polanski's critically acclaimed 1968 classic. Yes,
divorced from Rosemary's Baby,
writer/director Rand Ravich's slow-brew sci-fi chiller sort of works, particularly as it follows Charlize Theron on a rather
credible descent into doubt, paranoia and maternal terror. But Theron is no Mia Farrow, ice-blonde pixie cut or no, and one
actress can only shoulder so much of a film's burdens. Ravich (whose previous feature film credits include Candyman:
Farewell to the Flesh and The Maker) is no Polanski either, much as he tries to crib the troubled but
accomplished filmmaker's style, presence of mind, and mastery of tension. And The Astronaut's Wife, as deadly
serious as it is desperate to be taken seriously, is no perennial horror classic. It doesn't match or surpass Rosemary's
Baby. It merely drifts past; a late '90s curiosity, lost in space.
"Don't say a word, honey. You're fine. You're fine now..."
Theron plays Jillian Armacost, a newly pregnant housewife edging ever closer to madness after learning that her husband, a
respected astronaut who narrowly survived a mysterious explosion in space, may not be her husband anymore. Johnny Depp,
meanwhile, is woefully miscast (or at the very least mismatched) as Commander Spencer Armacost, the sleepy-eyed,
Southern drawl'd NASA corpsman and seemingly devoted husband who may or may not be possessed by an alien entity.
Jillian tries her best to smother her suspicions, but it becomes increasingly difficult as the kind of evidence only a wife would
notice begins to mount. Still, she continues to resist her instincts, turning away fired NASA analyst Sherman Reese (Joe
Morton, Dr. Miles Dyson in Terminator 2: Judgment Day), even as he offers her proof. The audio recording he plays
shakes her out of her stupor, though, as does a VHS video that follows soon after. As her pregnancy progresses, Jillian finally
has to confront a horrible truth: if Spencer isn't human, her unborn twins, conceived after her husband's return to Earth,
might not be either.
Depp tries to spruce up the good commander and give him a few defining quirks, as is the eclectic actor's M.O., but it
undermines much of what Ravich is trying to accomplish through the first and second acts of the film. Spencer is meant to be
both an average joe and, possibly, a clever chameleon; a man so normal and husbandly that Jillian, and by extension the
audience, is unsure of what to think or believe. Has Spencer been hijacked by an alien? Is he simply traumatized after a near-
death encounter? Or is Jillian suffering some form of mental breakdown? Unfortunately, Ravich spoils the very same mystery
he goes on to drag out for the better part of an hour, making it all too clear all too early that something out of the ordinary,
whatever it was, did indeed happen during the commander's latest space walk. It's obvious the moment Spencer and his
fellow astronaut, Alex (Nick Cassavetes), return to Earth, tight-lipped, dismissive and, for one of them, on the brink of
seizure-induced death. And if that doesn't clue you in, Alex's instability and grisly end (by way of spontaneous hemorrhaging
and bleeding) certainly should. The Astronaut's Wife sticks to the path forged by Rosemary's Baby; the
difference being that Polanski made it difficult to know who Rosemary should trust while Ravich installs a flashing sign on each
character's forehead. Alex and Spencer: DO NOT TRUST. Jillian, her sister (Clea DuVall), Sherman and virtually everyone else
that appears in the film: TRUST. Why draw out a mystery if there's very little mystery to begin with?
Ravich's script, bloated and self-important, weeble-wobbles between '90s genre clichés and arthouse infatuation, essentially
playing dress-up in its mommy and daddy's closet. The story repeats itself far more often than it genuinely surprises too,
dialogue is downright silly at times, and Ravich's pacing, sluggish but deliberate, seeds more pretension than tension. The film
has its moments, sure -- typically when Theron is the only one on screen -- and its supporting performances are serviceable.
Not airtight, but serviceable. (Even Theron was more convincing in The Devil's Advocate, in a somewhat similar role
no less.) Ravich, though, demands too much leeway. I'm not above looking past a glaring plot hole or suspending disbelief to
enjoy a movie. I do ask that a film at least be cohesive, and therein lies the problem. Strike that. Problems. Plot holes
are vast and numerous, leaps in logic more so, and Spencer is all over the place, hopping from one mood to the next as it
benefits Ravich, not the evil alien that might be lurking behind the poor man's eyes.
Astronauts under such duress, refusing to answer questions and peering at anyone who asks with sinister intent, wouldn't be
sent home with a pat on the back and a get-back-to-your-lives. NASA, God rest its soul, wouldn't dismiss anything with a
"don't worry, kiddo, that's static," even in 1999. Particularly when that noise clearly isn't static, it's some otherworldly
demon cry created to induce nightmares and cause widespread panic. For that matter, wouldn't the big brains and big wigs at
NASA raise an eyebrow or two if a pair of unconscious astronauts somehow made it back to Earth in one piece after a horrific
explosion? I'd go on but that would risk spoiling the ending, which takes a sharp right turn at ridiculous and raises too many
questions of its own. Chief among them: why didn't Spencer quietly do what Spencer ultimately does as soon as he had a
private moment with his pregnant wife? It would have saved him a lot of trouble, not to mention hospital bills, blood stains,
shady denials and a whole lot of slinking around. The end result? As a skin-crawling, largely creatureless creature feature,
The Astronaut's Wife evokes just enough dread and elicits just enough unease to earn a pregnancy-from-hell pass.
Key word: just. But as an extraterrestrial twist on Polanski's Rosemary's Baby, it throws the space babies out with the
bath water.
Whether by Ravich's insistence or from sipping the on-set Kool-Aid, director of photography Allen Daviau's preening genre
cinematography is all over the place. Warner, for its part, is reasonably faithful to Ravich and Daviau's erratic intentions,
marrying The Astronaut's Wife to a 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation that's just as fickle and inconsistent. The
film's palette hop-scotches from bloodless to dull to dramatic, skintones are largely lifelike but occasionally anemic, and
contrast, drab one minute and luminous the next, seems at constant odds with the image's otherwise able-bodied black levels
and semi-satisfying delineation. Still, detail remains refined and pleasing throughout (barring some inherent softness here and
there), textures are well-resolved on the whole, close-ups are quite striking and grain is present and filmic at all times. Daviau
has a penchant for diffusion, which leaves more than a few shots hazy and smeared, but I didn't see any evidence of noise or
grain reduction, invasive cleanup passes, or anything that might raise a red flag. Artifacting and aliasing don't pop up either,
and the only instance of banding I caught circled the sun during Spencer and Jillian's dream. And while there is evidence of a
somewhat heavy hand when it comes to edge enhancement, there isn't much in the way of unsightly halos or ringing to
contend with. Age, a less-than-perfect source, and Daviau's original photography are responsible for most of the encode's
shortcomings, and videophiles will react accordingly. Most fans, though, will be a bit more pleased thanks to the marked
upgrade the Blu-ray offers over the previously released standard DVD.
Much the same can be said of Warner's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track, which doesn't deviate from the film's original
sound design. Dialogue is lethargic and lifeless on occasion, yes, but for the most part, voices are clear, intelligible and distinct.
Prioritization disappoints at times too, but even the best lossless track can't turn water into wine. LFE output is strong and
supportive, albeit a bit hesitant when dread, rather than punctuated fear or chills, fuses the soundscape with a hum of low,
ominous energy. The rear speakers do their part as well, expanding the soundfield convincingly and allowing crowded ball
rooms, spacious houses and sterile examination rooms to distinguish themselves. Smooth pans, a few notable directional
effects, suitably capable dynamics, and several truly chilling bursts of alien "static" only help, making The Astronaut's
lossless track a good one. Not great, mind you. Just good.
Critics may balk, but The Astronaut's Wife still has its small share of impassioned fans. And more power to 'em. I adore
Soderbergh's Solaris and Aronofsky's The Fountain, and both have been raked over the coals by audiences and
critics alike. Ravich's distended, slowburn sci-fi chiller just doesn't do it for me. It didn't work in 1999 (although I seem to
remember enjoying it more at the time) and it doesn't work in 2012. Ravich's story is full of plot holes, his script is
peppered with cheesy dialogue, Depp fizzles, and Theron is left to shoulder a film preoccupied with its own grim seriousness.
Warner's Blu-ray release is better -- breathing some much needed life into the film with a decent video transfer and a solid
DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track -- but source issues, inconsistencies and at-times dingy photography doesn't bode
well for its high definition longevity.
This summer, Warner Home Entertainment will continue transferring its library catalog onto the HD format. The studio will release Blu-rays for sixteen popular thrillers, including The Butterfly Effect, Coma, Hard to Kill, Next of Kin, Outland, and the Blu-ray ...
