The Man Who Fell To Earth- 1976
Rating - 18
Director - Nicolas Roeg
Written by - Walter Tevis and Paul Mayersberg
Starring - David Bowie, Candy Clark, Rip Torn, Buck Hendry
Run time - 139 minutes
The Man Who Fell To Earth is a 1976 sci-fi drama about Thomas Jerome Newton (Bowie), an alien in human form from a distant planet which has had a major drought and is on the search for water to bring to his family. To succeed, he builds a business empire with attorney Oliver Farnsworth (Hendry), though Thomas leaves the crowded city to a motel in New Mexico where he meets Mary-Lou (Clark), a maid and bell hop at the motel. They soon start a relationship where Mary-Lou introduces Thomas to many earth customs and culture including TV, alcohol and sex. They then move to a cabin house beside a river.
Meanwhile former collage professor Nathan Bryce (Torn), gets a job at Thomas’ company and soon becomes confidant. He senses his bosses alieness and sets x ray cameras up in his house and sees his alien anatomy. When he figures out Bryce has figured out his secret, Thomas comes addicted to TV and alcohol which puts a strain on his relationship with Mary-Lou and also leads to him showing her his true form. She is immediately shocked and flees the house. Then Thomas is then captured by the government and has many experiments performed on him for over a year in a luxurious room where he is isolated.
(im not going to write anymore because I don’t want to spoil anymore :))
To be honest, I didn’t enjoy this movie as much as I thought I would. This is probably due to the frequent gaping plot holes and an unnecessarily large number of sex scenes. Through It is a promising plot, the film is quite hard to follow but it’s set to make you think. David Bowie does a great lead performance in his first role in a movie, though the movie still isn’t as good as this either, I’d prefer to watch Labyrinth.
Score - 6/10
Comments
Post a Comment