E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Rating: Null/10 (11 November 2012)

With E.T., the Spielberg/Williams collaboration reaches an overwhelming crescendo. Story points, emotion, and music are perfectly synchronized, and symphonic mastery blends seamlessly with crystalline directorial vision. Spielberg demonstrates a real aptitude for directing child actors, evincing genuine fright, sadness, and love. Realistic childlike senses of humor, wonder, and adventure empower the young main characters to guide us on a supremely entertaining ride. Writer Melissa Mathison makes bold, strong, beautiful choices in her characterizations and thematic development. She tells the story from the point of view of the children, but never completely vilifies the adults. In the scene leading up to E.T.'s "death," the doctors working on the creature try their hardest to save him and are visibly distraught when it appears they are unable to keep him alive, despite Elliott's accusative remark, "Look at what they've done to you." The title character is a wondrous amalgamation of various forms of "the other"—those companions, projections, and creations of the human mind—other beings that fill the void when ordinary adult human beings just don't cut it. E.T. is, at once, an alien, a god, a superhero, a pet, and a child. Even to Elliott and Gertie, who are themselves children, E.T. is like a child, and they are able to teach him things. Like a faithful dog, E.T. feels what Elliott feels. Yet, somehow E.T. also assumes a magisterial presence; he exhibits supernatural powers and serves as a "savior" of sorts, distracting Elliott and his siblings from the pain of divorce. When Elliott thinks that E.T. is dead, he makes him something resembling a religious promise: "I'll believe in you all my life." It is a rare movie that can make children and adults alike feel so strongly for an alien creature whose eyes are said to have been patterned on Einstein's and whose voice was partially supplied by a chain-smoking 70-year-old woman. It is an even rarer movie that can make the hearts of its viewers long achingly for that same alien title character to find his way "home"—while, at the same time, ache wistfully when they realize that he can't "stay."