Talk about "Flightplan" here:
Review by: Breanne Derby
Plot Summary
In this quasi-thriller Jodie Foster plays Kyle Pratt, an airplane engineer whose husband recently committed suicide by jumping off of a building near their home in
Berlin, Germany. Distraught and clearly not ready to cope with this great loss, Kyle and her daughter are traveling with the coffin on the way to New York City where the funeral is going to be held. However, during the flight, Kyle falls asleep and her daughter goes missing. Kyle becomes frantic and runs around the airplane like a maniac in search of the only person in the world who matters to her. Unfortunately, as the child is consistently not found, and Kyle becomes more and more hysterical, the question is raised whether or not Kyle even had a daughter.
Review
This film began by not explaining anything to the audience, and leaving us to gradually piece things together as it progressed. Not having much of a background on the characters and not knowing whether the characters were dreaming or things were really happening was a huge flaw in the beginning. It was completely unexplained, presumably to give the audience a feeling of disorientation as if their loved one had also recently died, but it only confused people (especially the very talkative old women behind me) and took away from the plot. Not condescending to the audience is one thing, but leaving the viewers completely in the dark is another.
The set of the film was definitely a very interesting one. The vast majority of the film takes place onboard an airplane 30,000 feet in the air. It wouldn't seem that there would be many places in an airplane besides first-class and coach, but the film travels through coach, first-class, the places of the stewards and stewardesses, the cockpit, into the nose of the plane, up into the wings, down into the cargo area, and even into the bathrooms. There were many nooks and crannies within the plane, and though the film was set in one place, it made use of every room the plane had to offer.
As far as the acting went, Jodie Foster did a good job of playing a frantic mother looking out for the safety of her child, and Sean Bean played a strong, cool pilot, but there were disappointments as well. The daughter was supposed to be portrayed as withdrawn, and "not herself," but instead she seemed like she couldn't act.
Acting of the little girl aside, this still could have been quite an enthralling film if the plot hadn't been so horrendous. The storyline was really what ruined this film for me. The first half of the film was good, though a little drawn out, but once it doesn't seem like it can go anywhere else the plot manages to twist in the worst possible direction. There were so many better ways to have ended this film, but it ended in a pathetic attempt to have a plot twist that "nobody saw coming."
Conclusion
This film was a gross disappointment, and I really should have seen it coming. The trailer made it out to be a fascinating film with things constantly happening, but in reality, Jodie Foster played a spastic mother who couldn't keep herself in control. The bulk of the film was her running around like a chicken with its head cut off, convinced that nobody could have done as good a job as her at looking for her daughter.
If you were planning on seeing this film, I'd advise against it, the trailer is much better than the actual movie, and it's much shorter also. Jodie Foster is a very talented actress, but when given things like Flightplan to work with, it's hard to make a good film out of it. Two stars for Flightplan: it wasn't a very good story, and I wouldn't want to see it again.
