In 1984, John Carpenter was best known for his work on the "Halloween" movies and "Starman" was promoted as some sort of eerie, sci-fi adventure in order to tap into his core audience. Largely forgotten over the years due to the explosion of sci-fi movies in the late 80s, and 90s, what most people fail to remember is that "Starman" is actually a love story disguised as a road movie with alien overtones. And a surprisingly tender one at that.

Somewhere deep in a rural area, a young widow, Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen), is watching old home movies of her happier days with her dead husband (Jeff Bridges). Depressed and drunk, she falls into a stupor only to be awakened by a loud crash. Outside, a spaceship has landed, and mysteriously, an alien life form has entered into Jenny's home and taken the shape and size of her deceased love. The Starman needs to rendezvous with his mother ship in order to survive, and Jenny is forced to take a road trip to the meeting place. Along the way, the government forces which have tracked the alien life form, led by a well-meaning scientist (Charles Martin Smith), are closing in to capture and study this species. Meanwhile, Jenny cannot overcome her feelings for her dead husband, now embodied by the Starman, and begins to rekindle her feelings of love; in turn, the Starman begins to question this notion of "love"…

Who knew John Carpenter had it in him to make such a quietly powerful film? "Starman" in many ways goes counter to his earlier work. Instead of shocks and thrills, there are long moments of silence, stillness and communication. Instead of tension and suspense, there is comfortable chemistry between the leads and moments of humor and tears. "Starman" is a love story of the highest order, and Carpenter understands this and plays up this aspect beautifully. His film is understated and genuinely moving in many ways. However, some parts of the film do tend to drag, and a tighter rein might have helped move things along better.

Karen Allen and Jeff Bridges play the lead characters in sync with Carpenter's vision for the film. Allen makes a strong, appealing heroine. Her Jenny Hayden is a mass of conflicting emotions and feelings, confused and bewildered by the alien inside her husband's body, attracted and yet afraid of what he has become. For his Oscar nominated performance, Bridges created an alien life form quite unlike anything ever seen before or since. Most actors would either play the alien too otherworldly, or too human, especially given a role such as this, where the two states of being mesh and are in constant conflict with each other. Resisting such a simple, one-note reading of the role, Bridges instead fashions a character that is believably human and alien simultaneously, avoiding all the pitfalls of an actor trying to "be from another planet". Consequently, he's fashioned one of the most wholly realized and believable aliens in cinematic history (for a textbook definition of how not to play such a character, refer to Arnold Schwarzzenegger in both "Terminator" movies). The pair share an endearing chemistry onscreen, and together with some very strong support work by Charles Martin Smith, they manage to smooth over some wrinkles in the film's pacing and plot inconsistencies.

Starman boasts of spectacular performances and a sweet-natured, almost old-fashioned, love story. Who'd have thought all this possible from a John Carpenter movie?

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