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I know I’m going to get plenty of side-eyes and comments telling me that I’m crazy, but I just don’t see what’s so great about Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I find much of it interminably dull, it’s depiction of aliens at odds with itself, but it’s saved by impeccable craft and a great leading performance from Richard Dreyfuss.
I think the main problem with Close Encounters is that none of the main characters are terribly compelling or fleshed out enough to wrap me up in their supposed complex emotional states. They speak and act in goopy mystical exchanges, any depth doesn’t come from within their characters as written but from the plot machinations as needed. Even then, only Dreyfuss as Roy Neary really gets anything juicy to chew on as an actor. The plot is thin, at 135 minutes it feels padded and like it could use a quick edit to tighten up its structure, and the characters are even thinner.
But it just seems such a strange choice to depict the actions of a man who goes dark, becomes obsessed with the possibility of flickering lights in the sky, practically cheats on his wife, and then abandons them to run off with the aliens in the end as one of child-like wonder and spectacle. Terri Garr’s suffering wife is a badly needed dose of reality, and once she exits for saner living situations, Close Encounters goes head-first into the story of a selfish man who abandons his loved ones for a possibility of extraterrestrial life. Having been a child abandoned by a father for dubious reasons, I don’t see much amazement, sympathy, or wonder in that choice.
Nor do I truly see a consistent presentation of the aliens. By turns they are kindly, coming in peace during the climatic moments, yet they also kidnap a child from a frantic mother desperate to keep him locked inside. No reason is given for why the aliens have chosen these people, or this particular time, to reveal their existence, but I’m not sure one could be given that is satisfactory. A moment of doubt or judgment on Dreyfuss’s sanity as a character would be most welcome, but the film plays it sympathetic to him at all times. I will grant Close Encounters a refreshing choice of making the interaction between extraterrestrial life and ours a peaceful one instead of one of violence and planetary conquest.
For all of my problems with the story choices of Close Encounters, one cannot impeach its craft. The special effects are still wondrous after nearly 40 years. The aliens themselves are unimpressive, but the spaceships are idiosyncratic and seem to lack basic human concepts of engineering, always a smart choice. And John Williams offers an emotional highpoint with his score, reminding me that there was a time when he was one of the best in the business long before he began to repeat himself. For me, Close Encounters can’t compare to the thrill-house adventure rides of other Spielberg works like Jaws, Jurassic Park, or Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s a terrific bit of movie-making technique, but that’s about all it is for me.
