Movie Review: Flightplan and Proof: Blondes, Grim and Dreary
Published November 09, 2005
Warning: Spoilers Ahead
Flightplan: What's a Mother To Do?
In Flightplan Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) boards a leviathan jet (that she helped design) to bring her husband's body back from Berlin to the US for burial. Having settled her traumatized young daughter into the window seat, Kyle falls asleep; when she wakes up the little girl is missing. Kyle enlists the help of the flight crew only to discover that no one else remembers seeing her daughter on the plane; eventually Kyle is presented with documentary evidence that her daughter, too, died in Berlin. A shrink tries to help Kyle "understand" how grief has induced her delusion, but during this conversation Kyle discovers what she takes to be irrefutable proof that her daughter was, in fact, on board. Sensing some kind of conspiracy, Kyle buttons her lip but is more determined than ever to battle against the stewardesses, the captain, an air marshal, and the other passengers who see her as an hysteric and even a criminal.
As Kyle, Foster functions as an action star to the extent possible given that the movie takes place almost entirely on the airplane. She sprints the length of the aisles, climbs and crawls through hatches into the luggage hold and some place referred to here as "avionics," coldcocks the bad guy. Thus, like last year's The Forgotten (click here for my review), Flightplan presents the mother as a chivalric hero, fighting the combined forces of evil, confusion, and indifference to recover her child.
Despite an Arab red herring, Flightplan draws no more than peripherally on the post September 11 fear of flying. (Though Victor Davis Hanson disagrees.) It is, rather, a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938), which, along with The 39 Steps (1935), represents Hitchcock's work at its most charming. (Some people might add To Catch a Thief (1955), and it's in this spirit that Stanley Donen directed the wonderful Charade (1963).) In these older, less technocratic movies, the suspense is tonic rather than truly frightening, and almost comically glamorous.
In The Lady Vanishes, Iris (Margaret Lockwood), an attractive young Englishwoman, is going home by train from a winter vacation in a fictional central European country to marry a nobleman. While returning a pair of spectacles to an elderly woman on the platform she's conked on the head by a flowerpot. The old girl, Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), a briskly unfussy governess, takes charge of Iris on the train, gives her some tea, and settles her in a compartment across from her. When Iris wakes up from a doze, Miss Froy has vanished and the other people in the compartment claim she was never there.
The only passenger willing to help Iris is dashing, eccentric Gilbert (Michael Redgrave), a folk musicologist she'd fought with at the hotel the night before. Even though he thinks Iris is a "stinker," and doesn't quite believe her story, she is awfully pretty, so he plays detective alongside her and is imaginative enough to be of considerable use. Indeed, together they foil the nefarious plot--without even knowing why anyone would kidnap the harmless old body in the first place--and in the process fall in love. When they reach London at last, Iris spots her fiancé on the platform and promptly dashes into Gilbert's taxi.
- Movie Review: Flightplan and Proof: Blondes, Grim and Dreary
- Published: November 09, 2005
- Type: Review
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Drama, Video: Romantic Comedies, Video: Suspense and Mystery
- Writer: Alan Dale
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Comments on this articleComments
Hey Aaman,
Thanks for the comment. I think it was the breath on the window that made me realize about The Lady Vanishes. Gave me a point of focus for my carping, anyway.
What's up with Paltrow? This could start a brushfire here on Blogcritics, I suppose, but does anybody like her? I don't know anyone who can stand her and the critics who praise her don't sound like they actually like her but rather like they think they should. She's so classy, and all that. Every time I hear or read something she's said, I can feel my arteries harden. If she were fun to watch I wouldn't care.
Hey Alan,
First, I'd have to say great review, as always. Only if more critics could be as educational and witty as you in their reviews. I agree with Aaman that I didn't see the parallels with "The Lady Vanishes" until you pointed them out as well!
And thank God I'm not the only person who isn't a big fan of Paltrow! It's really quite disturbing to see critics fawning over her while ignoring how much of a crushing bore she is. And what's more shocking is that so many critics fail to point out that she's nothing but a mechanical actress with no soul. But can you believe she's going to play Marlene Dietrich in an upcoming biopic? Poor Dietrich; she's probably rolling over in her gave as we speak. I always felt if anyone could play Dietrich (or Garbo, for that matter) it should be Uma Thurman.
Anyway, I wanted to know if you've seen Wong Kar-Wai's "2046" yet? I'd love to hear your opinion on that film. I've read nothing but rave reviews and yet I can't understand why. I felt it was masturbatory in style and it just couldn't support the thesis Wong was working with. Maybe I'm wrong. Talk to you soon.
Hey Alan,
First, I'd have to say great review, as always. Only if more critics could be as educational and witty as you in their reviews. I agree with Aaman that I didn't see the parallels with "The Lady Vanishes" until you pointed them out as well!
And thank God I'm not the only person who isn't a big fan of Paltrow! It's really quite disturbing to see critics fawning over her while ignoring how much of a crushing bore she is. And what's more shocking is that so many critics fail to point out that she's nothing but a mechanical actress with no soul. But can you believe she's going to play Marlene Dietrich in an upcoming biopic? Poor Dietrich; she's probably rolling over in her gave as we speak. I always felt if anyone could play Dietrich (or Garbo, for that matter) it should be Uma Thurman.
Anyway, I wanted to know if you've seen Wong Kar-Wai's "2046" yet? I'd love to hear your opinion on that film. I've read nothing but rave reviews and yet I can't understand why. I felt it was masturbatory in style and it just couldn't support the thesis Wong was working with. Maybe I'm wrong. Talk to you soon.
Thanks, Jamal, for the compliments.
It really would be infinitely better to have Uma Thurman as Dietrich--esp. in her Henry & June mode. Paltrow is all wrong, but the one ray of hope I got from reading all those horrible interviews is that she said she was producing the movie but not necessarily starring in it.
I did see 2046 and "masturbatory" is a great term for it, except that it makes it sound like it would be fun, which I can't say it was. I'm not a Wong Kar-Wai fan. Gorgeous lulling visual style and no narrative traction. I can't remember the stories or characters or even the stars (or titles). I can't even remember which ones I've seen all the way through and which ones I've walked out on.
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Interesting post, Alan - I didn't see the parallels with The Lady Vanishes until you pointed them out.
Gwyneth is just so Gwyneth