How Mid­night Spe­cial chan­nels the cos­mic force of Starman

Hope for a bet­ter future under­pins the atmos­pher­ic and sprawl­ing sci-fi road trips along vast stretch­es of Amer­i­can high­way in both Jeff Nichols’ Mid­night Spe­cial and John Carpenter’s Star­man.

We first meet Jen­ny Hay­den (Karen Allen) in Star­man sip­ping on wine in the dead of night, caught up in watch­ing home videos of her late part­ner. Then sud­den­ly from the skies a being appears – the exact dou­ble of the man she longs for. Her grief man­i­fest in the form of her lost love, who whisks her away in a 1977 Ford Mus­tang Cobra II coupé on a tense and thrilling jour­ney. In Mid­night Spe­cial we meet a young boy named Alton Mey­er, who is on the run from the US gov­ern­ment with his fierce­ly pro­tec­tive father Roy (Michael Shan­non) and fam­i­ly friend Lucas (Joel Edger­ton). The rules to his exis­tence are shroud­ed in mys­tery and intrigue but there’s clear­ly a lot at stake.

At one point Jen­ny explains the con­cept of love to Star­man (Jeff Bridges) as, ​“When you care for some­one else more than you do your­self.” This notion of pro­tec­tion runs deep through both films, with Roy putting him­self in harm’s way for his son and Jen­ny doing the same for Star­man (essen­tial­ly a new-born learn­ing the rules of our plan­et) while also deliv­er­ing a pro­found les­son to an alien on the mean­ing of the word ​‘love’. Jenny’s def­i­n­i­tion can be inter­pret­ed as parental devo­tion and that over­whelm­ing need to shield a child from dan­ger. It’s revealed that Jen­ny can’t have chil­dren but along her jour­ney she dis­cov­ers what it means to care for some­one who is entire­ly vul­ner­a­ble and in turn is gift­ed with a pregnancy.

The pow­er­ful surge of respon­si­bil­i­ty that comes with being a par­ent is han­dled with a sense of urgency and melan­choly in Mid­night Spe­cial. It’s a scary real­i­sa­tion that one day the per­son you gave life to will go out into the world on their own. Roy ques­tions what it means to be a par­ent (“What if our son doesn’t belong with us?”) and part of his jour­ney is learn­ing to let go. Jen­ny goes through sim­i­lar emo­tion­al enlight­en­ment as she too under­stands the need to say good­bye to her depart­ed lover and embrace the excit­ing poten­tial of tomorrow.

Trust is a major com­po­nent of both films, too. On first meet­ing Alton his eyes are cov­ered with gog­gles and his ears with head­phones in order to pro­tect him. He’s read­ing a Super­man com­ic and asks, ​“What’s kryp­tonite?” Alton is ready to face fright­en­ing haz­ards even if the adults cush­ion­ing him don’t think he is. Lit­tle by lit­tle his fam­i­ly allow him to expe­ri­ence new and won­der­ful things like the sun­rise and he comes into his own and gains strength. Jen­ny, who is at first mis­trust­ful of Star­man, comes round to his strange ways. When she is giv­en the chance to leave him and hop on a bus at a pit stop guilt kicks in as she grasps the fact that he is a com­plete innocent.

Each film implies that there’s an end to the world as the char­ac­ters know it, as they pack away the past and forces beyond their con­trol take over. But those ends give birth to new and bright begin­nings and ideas that are only imag­in­able in their wildest dreams.