Cocoon
(1985)
Anyone
coming across Cocoon cold might reasonably
assume the involvement of Steven Spielberg in some capacity. This is a sugary, well-meaning
tale of age triumphing over adversity. All thanks to the power of aliens.
Substitute the elderly for children and you pretty much have the manner and
Spielberg for Ron Howard and you pretty much have the approach taken to Cocoon. Howard is so damn nice, he ends
up pulling his punches even on the few occasions where he attempts to introduce
conflict to up the stakes. Pauline Kael began her review by expressing the view
that consciously life-affirming movies are to be consciously avoided. I wouldn’t
go quite that far, but you’re
definitely wise to steel yourself for the worst (which, more often than not,
transpires).
Cocoon is as dramatically inert as the not wholly
dissimilar (but much more
disagreeable, which is saying something) segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie directed by Spielberg (Kick the Can). There, OAPs rediscover
their inner children thanks to the arrival of “Magical Negro” Scatman
Crowthers. Cocoon feels like a Twilight Zone plot stretched to movie
length, but absent the kind of clear moral or final scene twist common to that
series. Indeed, Howard and writer Tom Benedeck are (again) so damn nice they
are unable to present any point of view on the choices facing this group. They
retire from the action, regroup, and hope that merely raising the prospect of
objections covers all bases (that’s
thought-provoking entertainment, you see).
I can’t say
I was overly enamoured by Cocoon even
on first viewing. Its most arresting feature was Tahnee Welch’s buttocks (so
revisiting it on a recent Film Four
screening, I found it especially egregious that this scene had been edited for
a more family friendly timeslot; retaining the cussing was just fine, though).
For me, the science fiction trappings were its selling point rather than the
crumbly old folk. The real problem with it then, and it’s just as clearly the
case now, was that it doesn’t have a pulse. Added to that, its scenarios are
demographically contrived; cast Steve Guttenberg (at this time he was
inconceivably considered a box office draw thanks to the Police Academy series) to bring in the young folk. The sub-Strieber
aliens and sub-Close Encounters
effects will do the rest.
Kael had a
point. Cocoon is not a terrible film
but it’s a terribly bland one. It intentionally fumbles its dramatic beats and
goes for easy emotion (almost) every time. It’s worse a crime than being
straight-up empty-headed because it pays lip service to themes of aging,
sickness and mortality while refusing to have a point of view on any of them.
It’s very nearly the opposite of last year’s Amour in choosing an unremitting tone that leaves the viewer
unstirred by anything other than fatigue.
Robert
Zemeckis was originally attached to the film but Fox allegedly got cold feet;
test screenings suggested that Romancing
the Stone was going to flop (it didn’t). Whether he would have indulged the
sentiment as much as Howard is debatable (or rather, whether the Zemeckis of
the ‘80s would have done; the Polar
Express director would have lapped it up), but anyone using Howard’s Splash as a guide might have though the
same. This was the actor turned director’s fourth feature, but Splash (his previous picture) had established
him with box office credentials.
His
subsequent run has been one of the most consistent of any Hollywood director,
no doubt partly due to a consistently middle-of-the-road, personality-free,
presence. His one stylistic trait is that he brings nothing of himself to his
films (a defining absence), aside from a pervading niceness. For a long time,
it was even hard to summon up much criticism towards what he did (that would
change decisively with The Grinch). Even
gritty, edgy Ron isn’t really all that edgy (Ransom, The Missing). He
doesn’t really feel it. The result is
that he’s made some solid movies based on solid material (the aforementioned Splash and Ransom, Apollo 13) and some
festering turkeys based on rancid scripts (A
Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code).
At other times, it’s his lack of sensibility that renders half-formed pictures that
desperately needed a push (The Paper,
Edtv, Frost/Nixon).
Despite a
general tone of indulgent veneration for the aged (one which equates with the
Spielbergian nostalgia for childhood; both are somewhat blissful
simplifications), Cocoon has a number
of structural peculiarities that distinguish from its expected route. If this
were an episode of The Twilight Zone,
there would surely be a moral twist if the characters chose immortality; it
would become clear that it was actually a curse and not a blessing at all.
Instead, the movie mimics Close
Encounters, where Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfus) leaves his family behind in
favour of the great adventure. So too, Ben (Wilford Brimley) and Mary (Maureen
Stapleton) opt to desert their daughter and grandchild. This is despite the
pain it causes them; they reason that nature has dealt them a bad lot so why
shouldn’t they. It’s a curiously selfish act, one where self-preservation takes
precedence over the tug of familial bonds. As is par for the course with
Howard, it is enough that they are shown to wrestle with the decision.
As if to
reinforce this Bernie (Jack Gilford), the singular force of opposition who is
shown throughout to condemn their quest for rejuvenation as going against
nature, crumbles when his wife Rose (Herta Ware) expires. Carrying her to the
life-giving pool, he discovers it is too late. Later, he meets the departing
retirement home inmates and tells them that he is going to stay behind. He
recovers his personal conviction but his lapse in judgement is enough to
provide him (and by implication the audience) with sufficient understanding of
why the others are doing what they are doing. It’s a cheap trick, really.
Indeed, we
see little reason, other than self-indulgence and some dependable performances from
veteran actors, to get behind these old duffers. Art (Don Ameche), Joe (Hume
Cronyn) and Ben are introduced as likeable fellows who are stoic in the face of
the tribulations borne of age (be it failing eyesight or cancer); they still get
up to pranks with the lady folk, and like naughty school kids sneak into an
unoccupied property to use its swimming pool. This is the kind of typically
misty-eyed view of the elderly that afflicts most movies. They are undoubtedly
another species, say the filmmakers, but if they are applied the traits of
children or teenagers (rather than adults) perhaps they will be more relatable.
The effects
of the water are instantaneous and pronounced. On their collective libidos.
Each gets home and gives his other half a right good seeing too (in Joe’s case
Jessica Tandy’s Alma, while Art pays a call on Gwen Verdon’s dancer Bess). The
next day the ladies are glowing from the results of a pronounced rogering.
That’s about as much insight as we’re granted; they are receptacles for their
menfolk and have little in the way of independent personality (they follow like
sheep when the off world trip is offered).
There’s an exception
to this, and it’s the only point where the movie gets vaguely challenging or
develops a dramatic backbone. Joe, his lustiness returned (and with the ability
to act upon it) goes for a night out and picks up a waitress. Joe returns home,
but Alma locks him out; she has seen this all before. The idea that there’s no
wisdom involved in aging, that if there is
any it’s more of a side effect of bodily decrepitude, is a (ahem) potent one.
But it carries little ultimate weight; Alma forgives Joe when he proclaims that
he’d stay and die with her rather than leave on his own. Howard and Benedek
might have shown some balls if they’d followed this gambit, Alma had refused
and then Joe up and left her. After all, that wouldn’t really be so different
to Ben turning down the desperate pleas of his grandson to join them and not
even saying goodbye to his daughter.
Walter: Put
down that cocoon!
If the
movie had actually dealt with the repercussions of such ideas it might have
held some resonance, but Howard can’t even muster any condemnation for residents’
part in draining the pool of its properties. The retirees descend on the pool en
masse and not only sap its vital forces but also start messing about with the
cocoons. The vision is (again) one of people who never learn respect or
decorum, no matter how many years pass. What was Benedek’s intent here? No
lesson appears to be learned by the trio. Nor the aliens, it seems at first
glance. We’ve already seen their leader Walter (Brian Dennehy) grant Ben
permission to use the pool against his better judgement. Now, on discovering
all their good work has been undone, and that one of their number is dead (the
cocoons contain dormant aliens left behind 10 or 11,000 years ago when the
aliens last had an outpost on Earth), Walter responds by offering the old
buzzards a trip on his spaceship.
Is it
because they showed him this strange human emotion called grief? He all-but
says as much as a tear cascades down his cheek (he has never experience the
pain and grief of death before). You see, it’s all right that the OAPs killed
one of the aliens; it’s a valuable life lesson! More off-putting still is the
all-hands-on-deck offer to help put the cocoons back where they were found. It
seems that Walter was so fogged up with sadness he couldn’t even come up with
that option himself. Thank goodness the old farts were there to prevent him
from bringing his aliens home; if they hadn’t, they could then help to s things
right back where they started (minus one husk of a pal of Walter’s) and get a
trip into space to boot. See, selfishness pays as long as there’s a twinge of
regret. Put it like that Ben and co
couldn’t have planned things better (it’s at this point the movie is serviced
with its prerequisite third act chase sequence; God knows, it needed something
to liven things up even if it is
wholly predictable).
Walter: We’re
Antareans. We come from the planet Anterea.
Why does
Walter offer them all a place on his ship? Because there’s room? Because they
have something to give as “teachers and
students”? Because he’s so loftily superior he fails to see that they need
to learn things in their own good time rather than be rewarded for misdeeds
like spoilt children? Surely if he’s that advanced, he’d realise they have
something to learn through accepting finite cycles? The aliens are wholly
benevolent in Cocoon and, while they
have something of the classic grey look, their appearance is significantly humanised.
They give off a white (angelic) glow and hover in the air as if they are fairie
kind. They also possess a sort of post-New Age ambivalence; they are creators
of Atlantis but flippant enough to make quips about its fate (“sinking never occurred to me”). Unless I
heard wrong their pronouncement that there were no people 11,000 years ago
seems fishy, but their (literally) glowing credentials are emphasised by the
esteem with which the dolphins hold them. It’s jolly enough to see Dennehy in a
nice guy role, but the rest of the quartet makes no impression (Welch is very pretty,
of course, but it’s not hard to figure out why she didn’t go on to greater
success). There might have been
potential, but you scupper that when you make them bland do-gooders (is it a
coincidence that the following year Star
Trek IV would fixate on aquatic life; Cocoon’s
ecological aspect is paper thin, however).
Death is most
definitely something to be feared in Cocoon.
One might suggest Benedeck is offering the alien experience as a metaphor for
religion. That, if you are a believer, you will be taken up to heaven (the
mothership) and granted eternal life (“We’ll
never be sick, we’ll never be older and we’ll never die”). It’s non-discriminatory
afterlife to boot, since there is no vetting process and it doesn’t require that
you are a good person (it must be a Christian heaven however, since Jewish
Bernie remains behind).
The view of
retirement home residents as dawdling well-meaning types who just need waking
up to the idea that life is for the living (or some such) is fairly
inoffensively patronising as these things go. Certainly, placed next to the
kind of crowd-pleasing moments that focus groups adore. It’s every bit as
funny, as we all know, to hear old people spouting crudities as it is infants
(one of the opening lines attests that the water in the pool will “make your old ball sack shrivel up”).
Then there are the all too predictable set ups (the pay-offs to the eye test,
the cancer diagnosis where the tester/doctor is staggered to see the walking
dead in tiptop shape). Old people just want to have fun, which is why an
ear-destroying dose of terrible ‘80s electronica accompanies a montage of slow
motion pool diving. This was the era for the music montage sequence, although
it’s still a mainstay of the romcom, so later we’re treated to second portions
as Don Ameche struts his stuff and – best of all! – breakdances. Obviously that
was the scene in the trailer that got people into the cinemas. Old people.
They’re so funny.
The
performances are consistently agreeable, however. It’s difficult to conclude
that Ameche won his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for anything other than being
in his 70s and having a less-than-convincing stand-in for the breakdancing
scene. But he’s likable. Cronyn and Tandy (a real life couple) do their best to
inject pathos into their scenes when given half a chance. And Brimley, in a casting
decision worthy of Clive Dunn, is 50 playing 20 years older with great
conviction (it’s a part that must have led directly to the terribly twee TV
series Our House with Shannen
Doherty).
Jack: None of this is bad for America, I guess.
Guttenberg does his curly goofball act but remains just about
inoffensive (strange to think his stardom was over pretty much by the time he hit
30). There’s an amusing moment where he’s seen reading The Complete Book of Extra-terrestrial Encounters, but his most
memorable moment is his alien sex scene (“We
show ourselves” explains Welch’s Kitty). It’s his reward for being a good
honest Peeping Tom. I’m not sure why Jack doesn’t go with the aliens; perhaps
he (understandably) finds the prospect of a bunch of crusties swinging from the
chandeliers and shagging like there’s no tomorrow a disincentive. Perhaps Kitty
just wasn’t that great.
Cocoon’s other Oscar was for Best Special Effects (it was two for two), beating out Back to the Future. The animatronic
dolphins are very good, and the aliens themselves are perfectly acceptable in
an over-familiar way. The alien spaceship is quite poor however; it possesses
none of the majesty of the (on the surface similar looking) Close Encounters craft. James Horner’s
score is awash with horrid twinkly music. His dramatic scores may repeat
themselves (Star Trek II, Aliens) but at least they have some
heft. This one announces the need to
succumb to wretched blubbing before anything hanky-sodden happens.
Cinematographer Donald Peterman had a run of sea-themed movies during the ‘80s
(Howard’s Splash and Star Trek IV included). Unfortunately
for him (who knows, perhaps he thought he was retiring on a high) his last
picture was the hopeless Howard adaptation of The Grinch.
Cocoon was a big hit in the summer of 1985; it finished
the year sixth in the US (Howard’s second Top 10 hit in as many years). But
it’s belated sequel Cocoon: The Return
did next to no business three years later. The absence of Ron Howard can’t be
the reason (he was off doing Willow,
but most of the cast came back); it’s simply that this was a movie with novelty
value alone to recommend it. No one was demanding a follow up, any more than
for Sister Act 2 or City Slickers 2. Spielberg meanwhile, no doubt cursing his
luck, was quick to get in on the old people-and-aliens act; he secured Cronyn
and Tandy for the (very) minor hit *batteries
not included. Tandy’s twilight years renaissance peaked with her Oscar win
for Driving Miss Daisy in 1990.
Ron Howard
makes average movies, so if you go into them with average expectations you usually
won’t be disappointed. The only ones that exceed such mediocre shackles are
ones that might have been great in the hands of another filmmaker. There was no
such danger with Cocoon, which favours
for simplistic pronouncements and Kael’s dreaded life-affirming outlook over the
potential of its own moral conundrums.
**
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