More than a hit film, it's an experience

Rating: 9/10 (16 August 2012)

"E.T." was the movie that introduced us to Steven Spielberg as the supreme sentimentalist. Facing the big-guns roster of Summer 1982, it seemed like a little movie, in every aspect. And this movie swept the competition and went on to redefine that movie season as "The Summer of "E.T."
Spielberg's ultimate fairy tale (from a script by Melissa Mathison) has a left-behind alien seeking refuge in the backyard of a suburban home. It's a broken home, inhabited by a single mother (Dee Wallace) and her three children as they try to maintain some semblance of family after Dad ran off to Mexico (with another woman). Elliott (Hentry Thomas) is the first of the household to discover the life form (whom he names "E.T.") and the two lost souls find themselves inexplicably linked. And that link (as well as the rest of the family) will be tested when the scientists come looking for their creature from outer space.
Spielberg wanted his audience eating out of his hand, and he accomplishes just that. The film is shot from waist-high (the eye-line of a child) so that we experience the events of the film through the eyes of childhood innocence. And when the government guys show up in their space suits, they're legitimately scary. Spielberg also shot "E.T." in chronological scene order, wringing the maximum emotional reactions from his child actors. Spielberg's a master manipulator; he knows exactly what he's doing, (he's done this prior with "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"). But it extends beyond just his cast and into the setting for the film. Spielberg's subdivision is clearly located in California (Elliott even point to California on the map), but the movie's setting becomes an almost-otherworldly place. There's a corn field in Elliott's backyard, complete with nighttime fog, and he's a BMX-ride away from a very Redwoods-esque forest.
The relationship between Elliott and E.T. is completely authentic, thanks in no small part to Thomas' ability to make us forget that he's reacting to an inanimate puppet. He sells it, no question. And speaking of which, E.T. is not an attractive alien. That the cast (and director) can make us laugh at, and cry over a character so hideous is nothing short of astounding. None of these actors are lightweights. Dee Wallace is terrific at playing the put-upon mom who's doing her best to keep the family together, and Drew Barrymore is the essence of childhood innocence as the youngest of the family.
This is a movie that isn't lacking in emotional punch, in any sense of the definition. Spielberg (with the help of John Williams' magnificent score) expertly tugs at the heartstrings of his audience, and makes it look easy. "E.T." is the ultimate in family feel-good movies, and it's truly a portrait of a man at the top of his game in Hollywood entertainment. The heroes are so good, and the message so pure, that it's scientifically impossible for a human being to walk out of this movie with dry eyes (or at least it should be).
It lacks the replay value of most of my all-time favorite movies (which I think is good, as I revisit "E.T." every few years and it never loses its emotional punch), but it always delivers.
Always.
9.5/10