'Astronaut Farmer' is a rarity

Directed by: Michael Polish

Rated: PG

(three stars)

By Bruce Bulloch

The Polish Brothers latest film "The Astronaut Farmer" opens with an iconic image of the American West. A lone horseman makes his way across an arid landscape bathed in the sharp-shadowed light of early morning sun. It is only when the camera approaches the rider that we realize he's wearing a space suit.

The scene unfolds - a lost calf is rescued - as if this little touch of surrealism were hardly worth a raised eyebrow.

About this time you may begin to suspect that you're not watching your typical Disney-fied piece of family entertainment.

The man in the space suit is Charles Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton) a small time cattle rancher, father of three, and owner not only of a space suit but a Mercury Class rocket rising through the hayloft of his barn. Farmer's neighbors view his rocket as an amusing eccentricity. Nobody really thinks he's actually going to launch the thing.

But when Farmer tries to buy fuel for his project all hell breaks loose. He triggers the surveillance system of Homeland Security and a long caravan of black SUV's shows up at his front door.

Farmer finds himself in a standoff with the assembled bureaucracies of the federal government, the wobbly loyalties of his small-town neighbors, and a bank exasperated by overdue mortgage payments.

On its face "The Astronaut Farmer" is just another spin on a thread-worn family drama formula: a fable about pursuing the impossible dream. But what separates this movie from so many that have trod this path before is the elegance of its execution.

As the opening scene demonstrates, the Polish brothers have a great feel for imagery. While the movie takes liberties with the technical realities of space travel, they don't skimp on giving Farmer's rocket the kind of mechanical gravitas that keeps you wondering if the thing could really take off. And with a pleasing nod to seat-of-the-pants ingenuity, mission control is run out of a little Airstream travel trailer barnacled with antennae.

The script is laced with a sharp wit that Michael Polish's direction never allows to stumble into buffoonery. At one point Farmer retorts to a government accusation that he might be building a terrorist weapon: "If I were building a WMD you wouldn't be able to find it."

But the heart of this film is Charles Farmer's family. This is a family drama that finally gets the sense of family right. No overly precocious children or overly clueless adults gum up the storyline; instead we get easy familiarity, broken dishes, and thoughtful discussions about the very best parts of Lucky Charms cereal. The compromises of ordinary life that Farmer is struggling to rise above possess a sweetness worth getting back to - and it's this gentle pull of family that sets up the tension fueling the plot, not simply the desire to get into space. To this degree the film belongs to Virginia Madsen as Audrey, Farmer's wife.

Always eminently watchable, Madsen does what she did so well in "Sideways", she grounds the movie. She manages to hold in each hand a fierce belief in her husband's vision and the fear that her children won't weather the tragedy if he fails. She makes us take Farmer seriously and frees up Thornton's performance in the process.

For an actor famous for creating layered characters - always having some secondary agenda hidden behind those untrustworthy eyes - Thornton's performance is surprisingly straight forward; and it works, making sense out of a man who can be at once in love with his family and in the thrall of a passion that may well destroy it.

Every parent has found themselves, at one time or another, prisoner to the nerve jangling insipidness of family entertainment, harboring a secret urge to leave the kids watching the movie and sneak out the fire exit for a smoke-even if you hate cigarettes.

Well, cheer up. This movie is a rarity, one that respects both your intelligence and your desire to protect your kids from the crasser elements of teenage and adult fare.

"The Astronaut Farmer" is a pleasure for adults to watch and, for once in the overly saccharined family-film genre, not the guilty kind.

Bruce Bulloch may be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com