Back in the Golden Age of the
detective novel the luxury passenger train provided a propitious setting for
the required murder and the subsequent mystery.
Aside from establishing an atmosphere
of comfort and privilege, the enclosed location nicely limited the cast of
characters and therefore the number of suspects. It isolated them from the rest
of the world, creating within the car something like a separate society, moving
from one particular place to another while the landscape outside the windows
flashed picturesquely by and the sleuth inside worked his way through the
puzzle, which of course he would solve by the time the train reached its
destination.
In our more tense and hurried time
the makers of Flightplan appropriately substitute the jet plane for the railroad, its passengers
confined within the great tube of the aircraft, traveling at great speed, and
separated by 37,000 feet of emptiness from normality. Though far less leisurely
and picturesque than the railroad car, the situation echoes some of the plot
and themes of its posh predecessor. Combining elements of the detective story
with the excitement and danger of the pure thriller, the movie generates more
sensation than the cerebral mystery, but still employs a puzzle that must be
solved.
Jodie Foster plays Kyle Pratt, a very
recent widow understandably distressed by the loss of her husband and deeply
concerned about the impact of the death on her 6-year-old daughter Julia
(Marlene Lawston). She and Julia embark on a flight in a new jumbo jet from
Germany, where she had worked as a propulsion engineer in aeronautics, to
America, where they are also taking her husband’s coffin.
Once on board, exhausted by stress
and grief, they take a nap; when Kyle awakens, Julia has disappeared, launching
Kyle into an increasingly panicky and desperate search that essentially propels
the entire movie.
The classic thriller stratagem of
suddenly thrusting an innocent protagonist into the middle of a dangerous and
puzzling situation operates somewhat differently in Flightplan. Since the limitations of the film’s location prevent
Kyle Pratt from really undertaking the familiar combination of flight and
pursuit that energizes most examples of the genre, she must repeat a number of
actions and statements, rapidly raising the level of her emotional intensity.
Since she also possesses a special knowledge of the airplane, she knows all the
places the crew can search in the huge craft.
Kyle’s greatest difficulties involve
the growing incredulity of the crew, the captain, the passengers, and a
friendly air marshall (Peter Sarsgaard). Once they fail to find her daughter,
whom nobody has seen and whose name does not appear on the passenger manifest,
they begin to doubt her story and her sanity, believing that in her grief she
has become delusional. Her desperation and hysteria turn the crew and
passengers against her, transforming the society inside the plane from a group
of ordinary people sympathetic to her plight into a hostile mob that applauds
when the air marshall finally handcuffs her.
The distrust and anger that Kyle
provokes accurately reflect the behavior of groups confronted by a passionate
individual risking public embarrassment to assert a truth. Their disbelief and
hostility impel her to monkey with the airplane’s electrical system, forcing
the captain to land and thereby guaranteeing serious legal difficulties.
At that point, the whole plot rotates
in a new direction, indicating that the disappearance is not the usual random
happenstance of the thriller and that her entanglement in the act grows not from
chance but from careful premeditation.
Despite a most complicated and rather
unbelievable retroactive explanation of the reasons for Kyle’s predicament, the
careful attention to the interior of the enormous aircraft and the convincing
manner of the crew create an acceptable and all-too-familiar environment for
extraordinary events to unfold.
Jodie Foster’s combination of
overwrought emotion and determined resourcefulness reinforces the credibility
of both her character and the situation and helps a great deal in maintaining
the high level of mystery and suspense.
In the classic tradition of the
thriller, Flightplan often teeters on
the brink of the improbable, but the scrupulously accurate sets, the solid
performances, and the sheer intensity of the emotional situation make it both
exciting and convincing.
Flightplan (PG-13), directed by
Robert Schwentke, is playing at Brockport Strand, Canandaigua Theatres, Geneseo
Theatres, Greece Ridge 12, Tinseltown, Vintage Drive-In, Pittsford Cinema
This article appears in Sep 28 – Oct 4, 2005.
