| If Pretty Woman took place on an airplane, it might be better than View From the Top.
Mirimax’s romantic charmer has been trying to find a release date for quite a while, but the film didn’t land until this month. Now that the flight’s arrived, it’s doomed for early departure.
Riff-raff Donna (Gwyneth Paltrow) is determined to become an international flight attendant of the world after reading an inspirational book by a retired stewardess (Candice Bergen). In flight school she teams up with two other flight attendants (Kelly Preston, Christina Applegate), and just as her dreams become reality, she falls in love with a young law student (Mark Ruffalo). Will Gwyneth make it to Paris in a Chanel uniform? Or should she stand by her man and make her dreams come true wherever she is?
The otherwise brilliant Brazilian director Bruno Barreto could have easily chosen three newcomers for the film’s central trolley dollies. Instead, we get the more experienced Paltrow, Preston and Applegate, and fortunately they do wonders with first-time screenwriter Eric Wald’s dialogue. However, the script is so dull, unoriginal and antiseptic that the film never really takes off.
The supporting cast (Bergen, Mike Myers and Rob Lowe) don’t get many laughs, either. As an airline trainer, Myers resorts to some lame sketch antics, which seem a lot like Austin Powers on Prozac. His outtakes at the end provide the best gags – the same is true for the rest of the cast, who are finally freed from their flight of terror.
To add to the turbulence, View From the Top gets shifty with its chronology – as we fly through Donna’s life, it’s difficult to grasp what year we’re in. The costumes, hairstyles and backdrop indicate everything from the late 1950s to the disco era, until someone starts playing with a Rubik’s Cube and several bad renditions of Cyndi Lauper’s "Time After Time" begin to permeate the soundtrack.
Amidst all the insincere charm, Paltrow appears to put on her Sunday best for the airport laughs that never really make it to first class. Every Oscar-winning actress deserves her turn at the romantic sleeper, and now that Paltrow’s got this flight out of her system, we can only hope she’ll stay closer to the emergency exits in the future. |
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