**Do the mashed potato!** Roy Neely is a gas repair man who has a close encounter with an alien craft and begins having strange visions of mashed potatoes, shaving cream and mud mountains. This all leads to Needy's marriage breaking up and he sets out to find the truth about his mashed potato visions. The climax at a mountain is breathtaking when Neely comes face to face with his destiny. One of Spielberg's best with a nice cameo by French director Francois Truffaut.

CinemaSerf

7.0/10

Jun 04, 2023

I always remember as a child hoping/praying that if extra terrestrials ever did come to visit us, that they wouldn't arrive in America. Think "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) or most other sci-fi stories: the first things they would see when they opened their door would be guns, tanks, missiles, soldiers... This film takes a far more sophisticated approach to how we might engage with an alien species, and together with some super effects and a far more nuanced storyline leaves us with room for optimism that we might not just try to shoot first and ask questions afterwards - should anyone ever do arrive. Spielberg was still, in my view anyway, learning his craft when he wrote/directed this and that shows in the real paucity of pace for the first hour. Richard Dreyfuss is adequate, but the constantly amazed/perplexed looks on his face start to become annoying after a while. François Truffaut features now and again - largely as part of a parallel storyline - but really, this only begins to engage in the last thirty minutes when the threads all knit together giving us a clever denouement as the scientists discover an innovative, musical, way to communicate that doesn't involved threats and bullets. Oddly enough, even when I first saw this at the age of 9, I never got any sense of menace from our travellers and the absence of any substantial physical form for us to identify with seems to help keep the magic working. Not John Williams' finest work, I thought the score suffered from the slow rate of progress with the plot but the symbolism and curiosity of spirit this film engenders makes it still, just about, worth sticking though...