Jeff Bridges as Starman and Karen Allen as Jenny Hayden stand beneath his spaceship before he gets beamed up in the movie Starman.Image via Columbia Pictures
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Roger Froilan
Published 20 minutes ago
Roger is passionate about movies and TV shows, as well as the drive-in theater. Aside from hosting and producing three podcasts and a monthly live show, he also collects comic books, records, VHS tapes, and classic TV Guides. Currently, he's gotten into restoring cars and enjoys many of the shows on the Motortrend channel.
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There’s a point in every great filmmaker’s run when they yank the wheel so hard you feel the skid in your gut. For John Carpenter, that swerve wasn’t The Thing or Big Trouble in Little China—those were still his terrain, thick with shadow and swagger—but Starman. The same guy who soaked Escape from New York in smog and gave Halloween its cold pulse suddenly turned around and made a love story about an alien trying to understand tenderness somewhere between Wisconsin and Arizona. In ’84, while politicians sold optimism and paranoia in the same package, Carpenter made a road movie about grace. Picture E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial missing his flight home and thumbing a ride with Burt Reynolds—that’s the neighborhood we’re in.
The skies back then were crowded. Close Encounters of the Third Kind reached for the divine, E.T. taught kids to feel again, The Last Starfighter promised you could save the universe with enough quarters. Starman didn’t chase any of that; it just let the visitor stay breakable. It doesn’t roar into orbit—it hums down a two-lane highway in a dented Chevy, taillights blinking through a storm. Part romance, part chase, part half-asleep prayer about what it costs to be kind. If you only half-remember the videotape box, go back. There’s a quiet heartbreak tucked between those headlights.
'Starman' Is the Softest Film John Carpenter Ever Made
Karen Allen and Jeff Bridges in Starman.Image via Columbia Pictures
Everything in Starman feels touched by hand. You see it in the lamplight, in the way acclaimed star Jeff Bridges stares at a spoon like it might suddenly move. Carpenter turns the volume of menace all the way down, but his rhythm is still there—those patient camera pans, that low, steady hum under the scene. Bridges doesn’t fake being human, he studies it. Every motion comes in short, curious bursts, the words catching in his mouth as if language hasn’t finished cooling yet.
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Posts By Thomas ButtKaren Allen keeps the film tethered to earth. Fresh off Raiders of the Lost Ark, she brings a spark that could light a back road. Her Jenny Hayden is a woman hollowed out by loss, still saving a seat for the husband she buried—until something wearing his face knocks on her door. That premise could’ve been nightmare fuel, but Carpenter leans into the ache instead of the fear. The story starts in grief and wanders toward something gentler. Their connection isn’t fireworks—it’s dashboard light on a foggy night, faint but faithful.
And then there’s Jack Nitzsche’s score. No icy synths, no mechanical pulse. Just a soft heartbeat that never insists on being heard. It drifts where Carpenter’s own scores would press in. Maybe that’s why the movie breathes so easily—the director stepping back, letting someone else set the tempo.
'Starman' Explores Love, Loss, and the Road Between Them
What keeps Starman lodged in your chest isn’t the chase—it’s the silence between the chases. Sure, there are helicopters and radar screens, but Carpenter keeps finding reasons to pause: a diner booth at midnight, firelight flickering across tired faces, a hand resting awkwardly on another because it needs comfort. Carpenter’s America is all rest stops, empty motels, and neon gone to rust. Jenny and her companion aren’t escaping the feds so much as they’re trying to outrun sorrow. Every mile feels like a confession, two strangers peeling back what grief left behind.
And that ending—no explosions, no victory march, just brightness. Jenny looks up, eyes wet, the light swallowing the horizon. Carpenter doesn’t give her triumph, he gives her release. Love, in his hands, isn’t conquest. It’s the grace to open your fingers and let go before you crush what you’ve been holding.
When Horror Gives Way to Humanity
By the time Starman landed, Carpenter had been branded the guy who made America afraid of its own shadows. So when he dropped a story this open-hearted, people didn’t know where to file it. Too tender for horror buffs, too strange for the romantics. But look again, and it’s pure Carpenter—just turned inside out. Even his monsters were always lonely: The Thing groping for identity, Christine burning with jealous devotion. Starman lets that loneliness heal a little.
Jeff Bridges’ Oscar nod was the only official tip-of-the-hat, but it fits. For one brief film, Carpenter cracked his own armor—the skeptic who still wanted to believe the world could be kind. Starman doesn’t tell you what to feel, it walks beside you until you start feeling anyway. Somewhere between the static and the silence, it hums a note about connection—the one we spend our whole lives chasing back.
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Looking for more cinematic close readings? Subscribe to the newsletter to unlock thoughtful essays, behind-the-scenes context, and nuanced takes on films like Starman and other directors who surprise with tenderness and craft. Subscribe By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.Four decades on, it doesn’t play like a detour. It feels like the center of his map. Beneath all the fog, the gunmetal, the monsters, Carpenter was always reaching for this—the flicker that survives the dark. Starman just found it first: a borrowed face, a long road home, and the fragile heartbeat of something finally remembering how to love.
Starman is available to watch on Tubi in the U.S.
Starman
Like Follow Followed PG Sci-Fi Romance Drama Fantasy Release Date December 14, 1984 Runtime 115 Minutes Director John Carpenter Writers Bruce A. Evans, Raynold GideonCast
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Jeff Bridges
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Karen Allen
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Starman
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