The makers of Flightplan have trimmed all the meat off The Lady Vanishes as if it were fat and served us the bone. There are leanings toward a more populated story—there's a stewardess who seems to want to help Kyle and one obstreperous passenger who makes sympathetic eyes, but neither possibility is developed. The movie is thus conceived with Foster as the entire show and no incidental amusements at all. It's a further mistake to make the missing "lady" the heroine's daughter because it intensifies the search beyond the bounds of inconsequential entertainment without giving it any greater substance. In The Lady Vanishes you feel that by searching for Miss Froy, Iris does what the idealized "anyone" would do in her place. In Flightplan nobody but Kyle could feel the same way about her fatherless daughter. Similarly, in The Lady Vanishes Miss Froy's helplessness is a decoy, whereas the helplessness of the little girl is not. And while I don't want to be stuffy, I don't find the helplessness of a little girl fun to fantasize about.
In addition, with no other characters on Kyle's side and her little girl out of the picture for most of the running time, we've no one to identify with but Foster as Kyle, up there alone, and she'd have to be a hell of a lot more amusing than she is in this movie to carry the picture. She does the trembly-but-tough number that impressed so many people in Silence of the Lambs (1991). Adding motherhood to the character doesn't broaden it, however, but makes her more monotonously "fierce." Foster sports a pinched bloodless expression through the entire movie—first as a sign of grief and incomprehension, then of panic and fear, then of vengeful anger. Foster is well over the threshold of believability, given the implausible premise, but I don't experience active pleasure watching her anymore. As Kyle, Foster faces off against the embodiment of evil, but of the two she's by far the grimmer figure.
Proof: Princesses
Like the protective mother-and-child romance, the father-daughter romance has a built-in primal emotionality. In a father-son romance, the proposition is whether the son will live up to, or perhaps exceed, his father's example, and the answer is always, eventually, yes. Too much emoting on the son's part would make us think his eventual success improbable, and we're not there for the emotions, anyway, but for the release of the final triumphant, and usually violent, act of justification. By contrast, in the father-daughter romance, the emphasis may be on the perceived improbability of the daughter's achievement and how frustrating or infuriating it is to the daughter. (I wrote more extensively about father-daughter romance in my review of Million Dollar Baby.)
![A Stolen Life (1946) [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21TZ2KTD98L._SL120_.jpg)
![Dark Mirror (B&W) [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/418KY281KGL._SL120_.jpg)
Article comments
1 - Aaman
Interesting post, Alan - I didn't see the parallels with The Lady Vanishes until you pointed them out.
Gwyneth is just so Gwyneth
2 - Alan Dale
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.
3 - Jamal Sledge
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.
4 - Jamal Sledge
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.
5 - Alan Dale
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.