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Theory Of Flight
© Unknown - all rights reserved |
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| Tookey's Rating |
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3
/10 |
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| Average Rating |
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4.50
/10 |
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| Starring |
Jane: Helena Bonham Carter  , Richard: Kenneth Branagh, Anne: Gemma Jones
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| Full Cast > |
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Directed by:
Paul Greengrass
Written by:
Richard Hawkins
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| Released: |
1998 |
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| Genre: |
DRAMA
COMEDY
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| Origin: |
GB |
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| Colour: |
C |
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| Length: |
100 |
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Helena Bonham Carter plays Jane, a 25 year-old with motor-neurone disease which has confined her to a wheelchair and is robbing her of speech. Since her vocabulary consists mainly of four-letter words, this may seem a mixed curse; but it is understandable that her resentments find expression in bad language and moody behaviour. She might be excused for thinking that fate has dealt her a further blow in giving her Richard (Kenneth Branagh) to take care of her for two mornings a week, to give her long-suffering mother (Gemma Jones) a rest. Richard is a bumbling artist who is clearly in need of psychiatric attention, but who has inexplicably been sentenced to 120 hours of community service after tying a pair of home-made wings to his arms and jumping off the roof of a central London bank. This is in protest against his girl-friend (Holly Aird) who works there and doesn't love him any more. |
Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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| Helena Bonham Carter gives the kind of minutely detailed, luminous performance for which Oscar-nominations are awarded (though she didn't get one - the film was released in America last year). The movie, however, proves unworthy of her talents. It will not surprise you to learn that Jane and Richard - a patient on the verge of involuntary death and a carer who appears suicidal - warm to each other, possibly in some kind of involuntary protest against the social services who have brought them together. The first twist comes when Jane demands that Richard help her to lose her virginity. He doesn't fancy the job himself, so they set off for London, where she selects a ?2000-a-night gigolo, and Richard promises to get the money so that she can have sex with him. It is around this point that the film is meant to take off into quirky comedy, but instead crash-lands into the wilder shores of the incredible. Not only is inconceivable that even two innocents such as this could fail to find a much cheaper male escort (especially as Jane clearly knows her way around the Internet). To make matters more improbable, Richard's plan to raise money consists of parking his car outside the bank where his ex-lover works and he is well known, marching in with a shotgun and demanding money from a cashier with only a pair of dark glasses as a disguise. To make matters even more improbable than that, Jane does not make a serious attempt to dissuade him or have second thoughts about her expensive initiation into sex. Director Paul Greengrass does well with early sequences which draw on his docu-drama experience (he directed the first-rate TV film The Murder of Stephen Lawrence). Unsurprisingly, he can't cope with the sudden lurches of the screenplay. All too obviously a first-time effort by Richard Hawkins, it suffers from major implausibilities, bewildering changes in tone, and the soap opera disease of making its characters say things that would be much better left unsaid, so that the audience could work them out for themselves. There is an especially embarrassing scene where Richard breaks down and confesses that he, not she, is the crippled one in their relationship. Even more laboured is the central metaphor, of flight. Richard is building a home-made aeroplane, which is meant to represent both leading characters' spirit to soar above their troubles. Not content with making this cliched notion clumpingly obvious, the screenplay goes so far as to make Jane lecture us that "Taking flight has more than one meaning". Other flaws include an outlandish sense of distance - Wales and the London Borough of Camden seem to be practically next to each other - and no sense of the relationship between Richard and his ex-girl-friend. It is with a shock that we realise at the end that we are meant to care if they got together again. Branagh is, yet again, weirdly miscast. He is far too obviously energetic and sharp-witted for a role which demands someone who can act vulnerable, directionless and messed up. But no actor could make sense of a character who is little more than a dramatic device. How on earth, you may well be asking, did such a turkey get made? Well, it does have its heart in the right place. It recognises that disabled people have sexual as well as emotional needs, a truth which may make some uncomfortable, but is a truth nonetheless. It offers a meaty role for Helena Bonham Carter, and a chance for her to get out of a corset. It is refreshing to see that fine actress Gemma Jones having at least one scene in which to shine. But none of this is enough to make the movie any good. | |
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