A View From the Top Review
by Karina Montgomery (karina AT cinerina DOT com)March 27th, 2003
View from the Top
Catch it on HBO
Long time readers know that Mike Myers in SNL mode is very tiresome to me. Gwyneth Paltrow - far from bullet proof herself (Great Expectations) cannot singlehandedly save a movie from itself by transcending its material. In a good movie, she is great. In a good movie, Myers can be great too. When left floundering in a script best reserved for the finer parrot cages in Hollywood, it's not happening. I should have know that a preview that would put most of its emPHAsis on the wrong charACTer would likely misfire in other ways just as much. Oh, how right I was. Despite the festive soundtrack and ending credits dance number (a la the Farrelly Brothers), much of the movie limped along toward some bizarre white trash fantasy that seemed veryŠpointless?
The general idea is that Gwyneth desperately decides to be a flight attendant, but also the very best that she can be. The frustrating part is that with her brains, work ethic, determinations, and looks, she could have been a surgeon or a lawyer or easily president. We are supposed to cheer for her success, but she's shooting so far below her potential that it is depressing instead. That, and the huge lack of jokes.
As my companion shrewdly pointed out, the production design is funnier than that writing. This is certainly true; the costumes and props and sets are great. However, I did like the movie better than I liked the easily duped audience. How awful to say it, but I never thought I would openly say that I was embarrassed at the response the worst, lamest jokes were getting, like a pack of Clear Channel zombies obeying a subliminal laugh track. You could say that their response disproves my theory that the movie was lame. But please know that it was truly lame. My audience proved, rather than confounded, this statement.
Should all smart young women want to be doctors & lawyer? Heavens no, but they should shoot higher than "lobster or steak, sir?" service industry drone. Not to denigrate the servers of the sky - I have a friend who has done it for ages - this film does plenty of that for me. But courtesy and efficiency are not learned through procedure and raw knowledge, but by human empathy. Gwynnie had little empathy for her customers, but plenty of book learning to know how she should appear to feel. She takes a job a less mechanically perfect but kinder person would have deserved more. I suppose the code was the real moral of the story, but it felt tacked on.
I did enjoy the use of "Variations on a Theme of 'Time after Time' " in the score, a point no doubt lost on anyone who does not remember the video, and the film lopes along pleasantly enough in time. But $9.00? No way.
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These reviews (c) 2003 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but just credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks.
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