Imagine you're taking a trip on an aeroplane with your only child just days after your spouse has died and you fall asleep, only to wake up shortly afterwards to find your child has seemingly disappeared. Not just disappeared from their seat but all trace of them ever having been on the flight seems to be gone too. Can you imagine how much terror you would feel? Wouldn't you panic? I know I would and basically this is the basis of the story for Flightplan; a movie starring the ever-talented Jodie Foster as Kyle Pratt; a propulsion engineer.

PLOT SUMMARY

Kyle is based in Germany and the movie begins with Kyle having to deal with her husband's suicide by jumping from the roof of a building and Kyle trying to deal with her grief whilst preparing to take her 6 year old daughter Julia to New York to bury her husband.

As if she's not had enough pain to deal with, when she wakes on the plane and Julia is missing, absolutely no one seems to actually believe her. Everyone claims not to have even seen Julia board the flight or have even noticed her sitting next to Kyle before they moved to vacant seats further back so they could stretch out and have a nap. She tries hard not to panic; after all, Julia couldn't have gone far, could she? But as time passes and she can't find her little girl anywhere Kyle insists on speaking with the Captain, played by Sean Bean, who listens to her worries and agrees for the cabin crew to conduct thorough searches of all areas that Julia could feasibly hidden in. Whilst Julia isn't found, the Captain starts to doubt her sanity and puts her in the care of an air marshal who happens to be on board, Carson (Peter Sarsguard) as Kyle seems to be getting hysterical and the Captain is concerned her behaviour is going to scare his other 400 or so passengers.

MY ANALYSIS

Now this is a film, a piece of fiction - so we shouldn't get too deeply immersed into it, but can you imagine how you would feel if you were in our heroine's position? Foster's acting was so convincing that I could practically feel her panic myself and I was glued to my seat watching the film to find out what happened. It was a traumatic ride mind you and kudos to Foster that she manages to invoke such emotions from the viewer. Throughout the film until just before the climax of the film, you don't know if Foster is a psycho and imagined her daughter's presence on the flight or if there is a conspiracy by everyone on the plane against her or what else to imagine. It's very atmospheric and there's one scene where the penny drops and Foster realises that the crew all think she's mad and she turns it around and accuses them of all being insane. The way this scene is filmed is key to how we, as viewers, get to empathise with her character. She doesn't come across as a hysterical mother throwing her weight around and being abusive to everyone around her in her state of panic but as someone who has just suffered a major trauma in her life (i.e. the loss of her husband) and is now facing the loss of her daughter. It was also interesting to see Foster looking like she's aging now. I guess her character is supposed to be in her 40s and it surprised me somewhat that you get to see Foster looking so vulnerable with wrinkles showing!

I always adore Sean Bean whether he's playing the good guy or the bad guy. I am glad he was cast as the Captain, even though he didn't have as much screen time as I would have liked. I think he did the role justice and he sure did look suave in his Captain's uniform!

Peter Sarsguard as the air marshal played an interesting role. He looks very clean cut and has sort of a smiley face and because of this look it was very hard to work out what he was thinking and whether he was playing the role seriously or not. It was difficult to work him out as I've not seen him in any other films that I can think of. It might have been deliberate and if so, it was very clever. Even if it wasn't deliberate; it worked. He did his role real justice!

The young actress who played Julia, Marlene Lawston, was very sweet and all credit to her acting skills that her character's sadness at losing her father looked extremely realistic. She also is not given very much screen time but obviously it was important to cast a child who could work well with Foster (which she did) and could portray grief credibly (also which she did)!

For those who enjoy hi-tech aspects of films, there are a few good things to look out for namely the way the credits roll on the side of the train at the start of the film and the way they run at the end of the film. The plane used in the film is a fictional model (the Aalto E-474) and seriously I've never seen a plane that large. It had two floors for passenger seating as well as a bar area and was even carrying a car in the luggage area - the whole plane just seemed enormous! I want to fly on a plane like that!

One particular scene which I didn't feel was cleared up was Foster's insistence that an Arab passenger knew about what had happened to her daughter. This wasn't cleared up to my liking and it was somewhat annoying that the "he must be a terrorist because he's Muslim" side-plot was included in the film. When you see the climax of the film, this is even more confusing.

I was quite amused to read on Wikipedia that "The Association of Professional Flight Attendants, called for an official boycott of the film, which they say depicts flight attendants as rude, uncaring, indifferent..." This made me smile as I don't recall the last time I took a long or short haul flight (and I take at least a couple of airline trips every year) where I felt every flight attendant was polite, caring and conscientious. More often it's a case of the majority being rude, uncaring and indifferent and one is lucky when there are one or two good ones on one's flight!

OVERALL THOUGHTS

I can't really say if the story and outcome was credible or not as this would let the cat out of the bag somewhat and I don't believe in spoiling things for potential viewers. I really enjoyed the film and my only complaint was that I felt some bits of the climax might not have been tied up as tidily as I would have hoped. A few small questions were left unanswered but then again I am quite difficult to please when it comes to thrillers or mysteries and want everything clearly explained to my satisfaction. I would be quite happy to give Flightplan a strong 8.5 out of 10!

OTHER INFO

Release date: 2005
Runtime: approximately 100 minutes
Director: Robert Schwentke
Producer(s): Robert DeNozzi, Charles J D Schlissel, Brian Grazer
Music by: James Horner
Certification: 12