Close Encounters is supposed to be an everyman's search for hope and meaning, but all I see is an allegory of bad parenting set against an alien subplot.
Roy Neary is an average Joe who is having visions after experiencing an alien encounter. His obsession with this vision takes over his life and drives his family away. He then finds solidarity with a woman, Jillian, whose son went missing during an encounter at her home.
A bad mother and a really crap father are supposed to be the heroes of this piece? My sympathy is not at full tilt here.
The finale is quite breath taking though and he remastered mothership effects stand up today. John Williams' iconic 5 tone greeting/language is a true masterstroke.
In the end though, you'd think that now his enigma is solved Roy be full of apologies and dying to get back to his wife and children and recount his adventure. Nah. He just hops onto the spaceship and fucks off with ET. Possibly one of the worst role models in cinematic history!
This is classic Spielberg and contains many of his go to traits. The worried mother; a one man quest; the unknown; untrustworthy authorities.
I just think this feels like a rough draft. An idea was formed and though it looks pretty good, the story needed shaking up and the protagonist needed to be sympathetic. Basically ET is this film's better sequel of sorts.
The mothership finale is truly spectacular.
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