War of the Worlds. 2005. USA. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Screenplay by Josh Friedman and David Koepp, based on the novel by H.G. Wells. With Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins. 35mm. 116 min.
Steven Spielberg released his relentless adaptation of The War of the Worlds in 2005 to audiences for whom the September 11 attacks were still fresh, and his version of H. G. Wells’s story reflects his own struggle to process those events. Like the novel, the film follows an alien invasion of Earth from a human’s perspective—in this case, Ray Farrier (Tom Cruise), a Bayonne, New Jersey, crane operator who’s more at ease with the car engine he keeps in his kitchen than he is with his own children (Justin Chatwin and a fantastic Dakota Fanning). Spielberg keeps Cruise off balance throughout the film; Farrier is always one step behind his kids, belatedly asserting fatherly authority without much success. Spielberg piles catastrophes onto the family (and the population at large) and shoots the action via glass reflections, camcorder view finders, and news snippets, creating an unsettled world where disaster is always around the next corner.