Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
When an alien takes the form of a young widow's husband and asks her to drive him from Wisconsin to Arizona, the government tries to stop them.
Starman is a warm, intimate sci-fi romance elevated primarily by Jeff Bridges' extraordinary physical and emotional performance as the alien learning human behavior — one of his most underrated roles, earning an Oscar nomination. The plot is a fairly conventional road-chase structure with government antagonists, though the central relationship gives it genuine emotional weight. Carpenter shoots it competently but without the visual flair of his genre work. The concept of the alien-in-human-form romance wasn't entirely fresh even in 1984, though Bridges' specific approach makes it feel distinctive. The ending is bittersweet and emotionally satisfying without being transcendent.