Jodie Foster’s first starring role since Panic
Room
(2002) finds her playing another single mother with a child in jeopardy in a
confined space. Having been just widowed, she’s taking her six-year-old on a
Berlin-New York flight. When she wakes from a nap, the child is gone. This has
gotten mixed reviews, with many of the bad ones focusing on the admittedly weak
resolution of the plot. It's definitely unlikely, but not actually nonsensical,
as with the season’s other airliner thriller, Red
Eye.
The thing that I found compelling was the sense of isolation the film conveys.
The airplane is one of the film’s more interesting fictions, an ultramodern
megaplane with two levels of seating. The first time we see its inside is a
memorable shot of the identical monitors at each seat that conveys both
modernity and impersonality. I thought the portrayal of both the mother's
increasingly frantic reaction and the flight crew’s professional-yet-detached
response was realistic. So even if it nearly crashes and burns at the end, I
thought it was worth a look. For whatever it’s worth, there was actually a
significant smattering of applause from the audience I watched it with.
circulated via email 9/29/05 and posted 11/18/13
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