Voyager (German: Homo Faber) is a 1991 English-language drama film directed by Volker Schlöndorff and starring Sam Shepard, Julie Delpy, and Barbara Sukowa.

Adapted by screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer from the 1957 novel Homo Faber by Max Frisch, the film is about a successful engineer traveling throughout Europe and the Americas whose world view based on logic, probability, and technology is challenged when he falls victim to fate, or a series of incredible coincidences.

[3] In April 1957, engineer Walter Faber is waiting to board a flight from Caracas, Venezuela to New York City when he meets a German, Herbert Hencke, who reminds him of an old friend.

After writing a letter to his current married girlfriend, Ivy, ending their relationship, Walter thinks back on his days in Zurich falling in love with Hannah.

[4] Voyager is based on the 1957 novel Homo Faber by Swiss author Max Frisch, who wrote the novel as a reflection on his country's complex role during World War II.

[5] German director Volker Schlöndorff, who already directed an Oscar-winning film, "The Tin Drum" (1979), moved to New York in the mid-1980s to make a television adaptation of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman with Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman.

[5] After acquiring the film rights, Schlöndorff turned to Rudy Wurlitzer, who had written numerous screenplays, including Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), and Walker (1987).

During the screenplay's development, Schlöndorff visited Max Frisch at his Munich apartment, seeking out and receiving the author's guidance and approval for the significant changes being made to his story.

In his review in The New York Times, Vincent Canby called the story "a modern variation on the Oedipus myth" and had a mixed reaction to the film, writing, "Voyager has been handsomely photographed in all sorts of exotic locations ...

Thinking back, we realize we've met some interesting people and heard some good talk, and that it's a shame all those contrived plot points about incest got in the way of what was otherwise a perfectly stimulating relationship.

"[9] In his review in The Washington Post, Desson Howe also offered a mixed response, writing, "To watch Voyager is to remember old-fashioned elements from the European films of [the 1950s], the then-exciting work of the Antonionis and Fellinis.

... Delpy's intrinsic mystique (not her acting) suggests the mystery heroines of old art films such as La Dolce Vita ... With a healthy dose of viewer indulgence, and the occasional blind eye to arty excess, there's something well-intentioned and uncommercial to celebrate.

"[10] In their review in Spirituality & Practice, Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat called Voyager a "mesmerizing screen interpretation of a Max Frisch novel" with Sam Shepard delivering "his best performance in years."

The production helped revive an extinct Constellation "Connie" prop airliner for the movie, and staged an impressive desert crash without special effects.