THEORY OF FLIGHT, THE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Fine Line Pictures/BBC Films Director: Paul Greengrass Writer: Richard Hawkins Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Kenneth Branagh, Gemma Jones, Holly Aird
When you pass somebody who seems quite a bit different from the usual passersby--perhaps a homeless man with unkempt hair and dirty clothes, maybe a person who is just 3 feet tall, could be someone who is not only in a wheelchair but breathing with a the aid of a tube--you are likely to believe that this individual is wholly distinct from all others on the street. You may be correct. But you may also be overlooking two other factors. 1) The person with the strange appearance may have sharp mental functions totally unaltered by his or her physical condition; and 2) The accompanying person who looks wholly ordinary may in fact be the one with unorthodox mental functioning.
In "The Theory of Flight," Paul Greengrass makes use of Richard Hawkins's wholly original script to unfold a comedy of offbeat proportions between two such individuals. Jane (Helena Bonham Carter) is a woman of just twenty-six years who'd likely get a wide berth from others. She is wheelchair bound, suffering from terminal Lou Gehrig's Disease, a severe neurological condition which does not affect her intellect or her ability to feel but restricts her physical movement and slurs her speech almost beyond comprehension. Richard (Kenneth Branagh), looks reasonably average but has a Peter Pan complex, a refusal to grow up, which leads him at one point to go literally over the edge. One day, after suffering a mini nervous breakdown, he perches with a pair of wings on the edge of a London building and takes flight--right into a net provided by the police. Winding up in court, he is sentenced to 120 hours of community service and assigned to a rehab center to be Jane's companion.
If you can accept the premise that a court would commission a handsome but troubled young man to escort a virtually paralyzed young woman about, you can embrace the oddities in the rest of the film. As the two get to know each other, the usually untrusting Jane gradually warming up to her escort's infantile dreams of taking flight, Jane asks a favor which serves as the story's bombshell. She is a virgin, having suffered symptoms of deterioration at the age of eighteen, and is obsessed with erotic fantasies. Jane spends most of her time glued to a computer, has been exposed to porno films, sees advertising on the tube that plays up sexual fantasies to sell products, and observes the influence that sex plays in the stories she watches as well. Carefree that Richard may be, he cannot bring himself to satisfy what is far more than a passing whim of this woman, a person who is treated like a child by so many others and who therefore can relate to Richard's own, self-created immaturity.
"The Theory of Flight" has a modicum of comical and sentimental scenes alike. One involving Richard's hiring of a strikingly handsome gigolo for his unfortunate friend is a gem with both farcical and tragic import, while the schemes of Richard's ex-girl friend Julie (Holly Aird) play up the restraining, even joyless nature of the down-to-earth life.
Ultimately the film does not soar. Director Paul Greenglass does what he can to liberate the two from all that is holding back their enjoyment of human existence, but though he films much of the comedy on the rolling hills of Bristol, "The Theory of Flight" has the imprint of staged play: two frustrated oddballs turning their backs on society to work out their defeats and disappointments. Helena Bonham Carter, who has studied the movements and attitudes of people with severe neurological challenges, is convincing, making the audience listen closely to understand her speech. Kenneth Branagh still belongs, in my opinion, to heroic roles, and should avoid cloning Woody Allen as he did to some extent in this film and in "Celebrity" before it. His stuttering is irritating enough: his frequent use of the adolescent expression "you know" is dispiriting, just as Woody Allen's was in the latter's "Full Tilt Boogie." The performers and director do realize the writer's contention that you may have a disease, but the disease needn't have you, but do so in such a feathery manner that the movie lacks a sufficient sense of comedy, catastrophe, or convincing eccentricity.
Not Rated. Running Time: 100 minutes. (C) 1998 Harvey Karten
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews