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United Kingdom · 1976
Rated R · 2h 18m
Director Nicolas Roeg
Starring David Bowie, Rip Torn, Candy Clark, Tony Mascia
Genre Drama, Science Fiction
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An alien arrives on earth on a mission to bring water back to his dying planet. He receives unexpected help from a lawyer, develops an attraction to a hotel clerk, and is intercepted by the US government — threatening his planet and his species' chances for survival.
The choice of casting Bowie as Newton is inspired - the androgynous star perfectly suiting the role of the space visitor. Bowie - in his first silver-screen appearance - excels, creating a perfectly suited sense of tragedy and melancholic ambiguity.
It’s ambitious, artful and unique. As for Bowie… what a star, man.
It may be time to stop calling Nicolas Roeg's sexed-up sci-fi film that vaguely demeaning term - a cult classic - and start addressing it as what it is: the most intellectually provocative genre film of the 1970s.
Portland Oregonian by Marc Mohan
There's an inherent contradiction at the film's core: this sexually explicit motion picture, seemingly made by and for altered consciousnesses, is all about how an innocent newcomer falls prey to gin, sex, and television.
Village Voice by Nick Pinkerton
Undeniably long, Panavision-wide, but of questionable depth.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
The story unfolds in a daring sequence of narrative leaps.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Bowie, slender, elegant, remote, evokes this alien so successfully that one could say, without irony, this was a role he was born to play.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea
It's not just the grainy stock and bad sound - technically, we've come a long way. It's the cheesy sex, the awkward edits, the hammy symbolism, the mix of art-house aesthetics and exploitation cliché. Strange creature, this is.
Time Out London by Tom Huddleston
Bowie’s performance is riveting, drawing on his history of mime to play a man who is almost, but not quite, one of us.
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