Jodie Foster brings a special kind of intensity to every one of her roles, making her impossible to ignore. She's not bombastic or showy; instead she manages to convey a quiet fury and strength beneath a steely surface. She has made a career out of playing the strong, assertive woman, one example being Special Agent Clarice Starling in "The Silence of the Lambs." This, in itself, is not remarkable. Lots of actresses have made very nice, if unspectacular, careers for themselves playing hardened women — just look at Kelly Lynch and Linda Fiorentino. The difference between these lesser actresses and Jodie Foster is the sense of vulnerability that Foster brings to her roles. Even when she is playing a tough, intelligent woman, she conveys a vast expanse of sadness just beneath a strong surface. She never takes the easy way out. Instead, she seeks out risky material that challenges our expectations. In "The Accused" she made us sympathize with Sarah Tobias, a rape victim who was, at her core, unsympathetic. In 1988, I seriously doubt any other actress would have been bold enough to even think about playing a rape victim who was not a perfect person. Even if another actress did decide to take on the role, I doubt she could have made the audience feel Tobias' shame, fear, guilt and humiliation the way that Foster did. In fact, any other actress probably would have alienated viewers, especially male viewers, who are fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of pairing rape with less than angelic women. The importance of what Jodie Foster did 17 years ago in "The Accused" cannot be overstated; without it, there is no way Charlize Theron could have played serial killer Aileen Wuornos as anything but a one-dimensional, man-hating caricature in "Monster." Without "The Accused," there is no way we would have even seen Peter Jackson's "Heavenly Creatures." In this respect, "The Accused" might be the most important film of the past 20 years, and it's all because of Jodie Foster.
In "Flightplan," Foster turns in what may well be her best performance. I realize that this statement, on the surface, seems absurd. Jodie Foster has been in big, important movies like "Taxi Driver," "The Silence of the Lambs" and, of course, "The Accused." However, her performance within the genre confines of "Flightplan" is so remarkable, so grueling, that it cannot be ignored simply because it is contained in a Hollywood thriller. It reminded me of Al Pacino's performance in the criminally underrated English-language version of "Insomnia." Both Pacino and Foster play haunted people who are used to being in control, only to be thrust into uncontrollable situations, despite their best efforts. We have to watch alongside them as their worlds spin out of control. Both films are brutal, exhausting experiences anchored by fiercely intense performances by their leads.
Like "Insomnia," "Flightplan" is a glorified B-movie, a high-concept potboiler about grieving widow Kyle Glass (Foster) on a transatlantic flight with her daughter, on the very plane she helped design, who wakes to discover that her daughter has gone missing in the middle of the air. She is assisted in her search by an air marshal (played by the always-reliable Peter Sarsgaard) and the plane's increasingly skeptical captain (Sean Bean). Together, they try to find the little girl, even though nobody seems to remember the child being on the plane.
Working within the confines of a single set, Foster helps director Robert Schwentke ratchet up the tension. Her performance is perfectly in synch with the movie Schwentke is making. Schwentke, a German director, brings a definite European approach to this film, with its ambiguous characters and quick pacing. He cut his teeth on music videos, but his movie never seems to suffer from the cinematic ADD that affects so many directors who have worked on music videos. On the contrary, Schwentke approaches his movie with relentless focus, trimming down the fat so the movie clocks in at a refreshingly lean 88 minutes. This allows the movie to maintain its relentless pace until the final, macabre twist of the knife.
The little-girl-lost premise of this movie resembles Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes," but Schwentke seems to have drawn a lot of inspiration from Peter Weir's intense 1975 film "Picnic at Hanging Rock," another film that detailed the disappearance of a little girl. "Flightplan" has the same quick pacing and sparse production design as "Picnic at Hanging Rock": both movies have a bland, clinical look to them that disconcerts the audience and highlights the emerging terror from which there is no escape.
One might think the enclosed setting of "Flightplan" would be suffocating, but it is not. Sure, it's claustrophobic, but unlike so many other thrillers, the setting never becomes unbearable or upstages the action. Initially, the plane is claustrophobic, but then, as the search becomes more desperate and it seems increasingly unlikely that the little girl will ever be found, the setting seems to get bigger and bigger, until it seems as if this plane may have indeed swallowed little Julia up like some horrible metallic monster. In this way, "Flightplan" reminded me of "Alien," another terrifying thriller set in a confined space high above the ground.
Oh yes, make no mistake about it: "Flightplan" is a terrifying movie, although not in the way most movies are these days. The film is a grueling experience, one built on anger and paranoia, two of the most basic ingredients of air travel in the post-Sept. 11 world. Kyle Glass' feelings of desperation and rage over the loss of her daughter are just more intense manifestations of the feelings all air travelers have nowadays. We recognize Kyle's emotions — we know what she's feeling. In this way, her terror hits home for us more than any masked killers or creepy videotapes. Kyle is us — afraid, uncertain and terrified of an enemy she has never met and can never appease.
All of this leads up to an ending which some may find absurd. I found it immensely satisfying, although it does require some suspension of disbelief. The movie doesn't cheat in its final act: the ending, while a surprise, manages to fit in perfectly with everything that leads up to it. While I'm not exactly sure this ending could be characterized as "happy" for some of the characters, it will no doubt be refreshing for an American audience in need of confirmation of the old adage that it's not paranoia if the bad guys really are after you.
Grade: AB
