Independence Day is a 1983

1983 in film

-Events:*February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together opens in New York*May 25 - Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, the final film in the original Star Wars trilogy, is released. Like the previous films, it goes on to become the top grossing picture of...

 film directed by Robert Mandel

Robert Mandel

Robert Mandel is a film producer and director and television director from Oakland, California. He is best known for his film School Ties, which launched the careers of Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Cole Hauser and Chris O'Donnell.-Biography:...

 from a script by the novelist Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman is an American novelist and young-adult and children's writer, best known for her 1996 novel Practical Magic, which was adapted for a 1998 film of the same name...

. It was designed by Stewart Campbell and shot by Charles Rosher. It stars Kathleen Quinlan

Kathleen Quinlan

Kathleen Denise Quinlan is an Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated American actress, mostly seen on television and in motion pictures.-Personal life:...

, David Keith

David Keith

David Lemuel Keith is an American actor and director. He received Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor and New Star of the Year – Actor for his performance in An Officer and a Gentleman.-Career:...

, Cliff DeYoung

Cliff DeYoung

Clifford Tobin DeYoung is an American actor and musician.DeYoung was born in Los Angeles, California. He attended California State University....

, Frances Sternhagen

Frances Sternhagen

Frances Hussey Sternhagen is an American actress. Sternhagen has appeared on and off Broadway, in movies, and on TV since the 1950s.-Personal life:...

 and Dianne Wiest

Dianne Wiest

Dianne Wiest is an American actress. She has had a successful career on stage, television, and film, and has won two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Wiest has also been nominated for a BAFTA Award.-Early life:...

.

The film concerns the small-town youth of a woman artist (Kathleen Quinlan

Kathleen Quinlan

Kathleen Denise Quinlan is an Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated American actress, mostly seen on television and in motion pictures.-Personal life:...

) and her challenge to become "what she's almost sure she could be." "Her desperation takes the form of affectations and pretensions that are a little like those of the young Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

 in Alice Adams

Alice Adams (film)

Alice Adams, also known as Booth Tarkington's Alice Adams, is a 1935 romantic film made by RKO. It was directed by George Stevens and produced by Pandro S. Berman from a screenplay by Dorothy Yost, Mortimer Offner adapted by Jane Murfin from the novel, Alice Adams, by Booth Tarkington...

and the young Margaret Sullavan

Margaret Sullavan

Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday...

 in The Shop around the Corner

The Shop Around the Corner

-External links:* Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, Issue 1, 2010...

, but the Quinlan character "has the talent driving her on past all that." Dianne Wiest

Dianne Wiest

Dianne Wiest is an American actress. She has had a successful career on stage, television, and film, and has won two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Wiest has also been nominated for a BAFTA Award.-Early life:...

 plays a battered wife.

The film was reviewed favorably by the critic Pauline Kael

Pauline Kael

Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....

 in her collection State of the Art

State of the Art (book)

State of the Art: Film Writings 1983-1985 is the eighth collection of movie reviews by the critic Pauline Kael.In the Authors Note at the beginning of this collection she wrote : "The title of this book is a deliberate break with my sexually tinged titles of the past. It seemed time for a change;...

: "Kathleen Quinlan plays the part of the woman artist with a cool, wire-taut intensity, Robert Mandel keeps the whole cast interacting quietly and satisfyingly, Wiest has hold of an original character and plays her to the scary hilt."