Steven Spielberg makes the prospect of alien contact feel worth the disruption, helped by Richard Dreyfuss’s restless curiosity and John Williams’s expansive score. The middle wanders, and the family drama deserves more care, but the wonder is persuasive.
Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a stirring science-fiction film, despite an uneven middle and some impatience with ordinary family responsibilities. Richard Dreyfuss makes Roy Neary’s curiosity infectious and his obsession awkward enough to strain his household. The picture is open to the possibility that visitors from elsewhere might deserve a welcome. Its sympathy for Roy sometimes makes the domestic drama unfair to those around him.
Richard Dreyfuss gives Roy the unguarded enthusiasm of someone who has stopped checking how he sounds to other people. His fascination is appealing, but we can also sense the effort of sharing a home with him. Teri Garr, playing Ronnie Neary, gives that effort a weight the writing does not always allow it: her distress can seem an inconvenience to the story. Melinda Dillon’s Jillian Guiler adds a more vulnerable presence, helping the film keep its extraordinary events attached to recognisable people.
Vilmos Zsigmond’s cinematography makes the ordinary surroundings substantial enough for the strange sights to register. Brightness has force here; the light can make a familiar place seem suddenly difficult to understand. Joe Alves’s production design gives the suburban world a credibility that matters as much as the effects, because we need to believe in the lives being interrupted. The picture earns much of its wonder by keeping us aware of how little preparation these people have for what they are seeing.
We were moved by François Truffaut’s gentle smile as Claude Lacombe. It makes the possibility of understanding an unfamiliar being seem worth the trouble, and the performance is free of any urge to dominate the film. His presence helps explain why the science fiction works: somebody is prepared to approach the unknown with patience. The prospect of conversation is allowed to carry a story that could so easily have settled for another attack.
John Williams’s score encourages that openness with a confidence the human characters cannot always manage. The music can be forceful about telling us what to feel, but its emotional reach suits a film about people struggling to comprehend an experience. It gives the effects a tenderness they could not supply by scale alone. There are moments when the insistence is a little much, though the score usually persuades us to stop resisting.
The unevenness is harder to forgive in the middle, where Roy’s absorption begins to produce diminishing returns. Michael Kahn’s editing has to accommodate domestic drama and expanding spectacle, and the movement between them is not always comfortable. At 137 minutes, the film could lose some repetition without making Roy’s need for answers any less clear. We understood his hunger well before the film finished insisting on it.
Still, the film’s belief in curiosity is unusually generous for a story built around unknown visitors. The director lets uncertainty be enticing as well as frightening, and the human performances keep the spectacle from becoming a demonstration of equipment. Our reservation is about how readily the film expects sympathy for Roy when the people around him are struggling to cope with his obsession. Give it an evening, but allow Ronnie a hearing afterwards.
