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The Theory of Flight
South Africa/UK 1998
Reviewed by Mike Higgins
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Following an attempt to fly from the roof of a London bank, depressed artist Richard is sentenced to be a companion to the wheelchair-bound Jane, who has a motor neurone disease. After a rocky start, the two hit it off. Richard shuns his ex-girlfriend Julie.
At his farm, Richard shows Jane the bi-plane he's building, whereupon she asks him to find a gigolo who will take her virginity. Richard reluctantly agrees to take Jane to London to fulfil her wish. Richard then shocks Jane by planning to rob a bank to pay for the gigolo. She asks Richard whether he will have sex with her; he refuses. The gigolo arrives for Jane; Richard sets off to rob the bank where, it turns out, Julie works. Neither Jane nor Richard go through with it. Julie confronts Richard who passes Jane off as his girlfriend. Richard and Jane fly his plane and have sex. Months later, just before her death, Jane is best man at Richard and Julie's wedding.
Review
The goodwill extended towards Kenneth Branagh ran out about the same time as this former golden boy of British cinema started casting his spouses opposite him. It ought then to have been with trepidation that he and present partner Helena Bonham Carter took on this whimsical odd-couple comedy. What's more, Bonham Carter appears spectacularly against type as a motor-neurone-disease sufferer, a role all the more conspicuous given the warmly received performances of disabled actors Rosemarie Stevenson in Orphans and Heather Rose in Dance Me to My Song.
Were it not for the fact that Bonham Carter has striven since Getting It Right to broaden the repertoire of Merchant-Ivory roles that established her, her turn might be dismissed an Oscar-chasing aberration. Mastering a halting speech pattern and awkward wheelchair-bound posture, her performance is a feat of actorly technique - impressive if a little flashy. The source of this reductive portrait is not Bonham Carter alone, however.
From Coming Home to Crash, mainstream film has never quite got to grips with disabled sexuality, betraying an uneasiness which screenwriter Richard Hawkins perpetuates. Whether it's the internet porn Jane consumes forlornly or the electronic speaking device she uses to voice her innermost desires to Richard, these hardware-bound scenes fail to throw any light on Jane's frustrated libido. The script also labours to strike an attitude of easy-going irreverence towards a sensitive subject: "As cripples go, you're really quite fanciable," jokes Richard.
The taint of expediency marks Jane's characterisation. So as not to complicate Richard's reunion with his old girlfriend Julie, Jane conveniently declares that even if sex with Richard is within her reach, she's resigned to the conclusion that a loving relationship is not. Her encounter with the gigolo - she lies frozen with fear throughout - illustrates succinctly whose story Hawkins is more concerned with. Director Paul Greengrass (Resurrected) seems far more interested in the character of Richard. The shots of the construction and flight of his plane essay a gentle lyricism which the film denies Jane in depicting her pursuit of sex. Whereas The Theory of Flight apologises for Jane's desire, it gives its blessing to Branagh's rumpled malcontent. The analogy between flying and sex isn't just clichéd, it's in bad faith as their equivalence has no echo in the way the film subordinates Jane's neurosis to Richard's.
The character of Richard himself remains infuriatingly vague. Why, for instance, does flying in particular obsess him? With only an improbably patient girlfriend and an understanding judiciary to compare him with, Richard's plight looks more like listless self-pity than troubled alienation. This said, one shot alone, almost Loachian in its muted humanism, suggests that Greengrass had it within him to introduce a subtler shade to the otherwise schematic central relationship. Their initial trip to a park having ended in mutual dislike, Jane and Richard are seen watching a kite over the brow of a hill. It swoops up and dives down out of sight, intimating a vaulting delicacy in their friendship which the film sadly chooses not to pursue.
Credits
- Producers
- David M. Thompson
- Ruth Caleb
- Anant Singh
- Helena Spring
- Screenplay
- Richard Hawkins
- Director of Photography
- Ivan Strasburg
- Editor
- Mark Day
- Production Designer
- Melanie Allen
- Music
- Rolfe Kent
- ©Distant Horizon Ltd.
- Production Companies
- A Distant Horizon and BBC Films presentation
- Line Producer
- Shân Davies
- Co-producers
- Paul Janssen
- Sudhir Pragjee
- Sanjeev Singh
- Associate Producer
- Tracey Scoffield
- BBC Production Executive
- Joanie Blaikie
- Production Co-ordinators
- Ruta Ozols
- 2nd Unit:
- Sara Morris
- Locations Managers
- Wales:
- Bryan Moses
- London:
- Kate Power
- 2nd Unit:
- Patrick Schweitzer
- Post-production Supervisors
- London:
- Jane Hamlyn
- Virginia Arendt
- South Africa:
- Lesley Fox
- Fine Line Post Executive
- Sara King
- Fine Line Co-ordinator
- Fabian Marquez
- Assistant Directors
- Jennie Osborn
- Llyr Morus
- Rhidian Evans
- 2nd Unit:
- Sean Guest
- James Haven
- Sasha Mann
- Continuity
- Bev Tatham
- Casting Directors
- John Hubbard
- Ros Hubbard
- 2nd Unit Operator
- Peter Thornton
- Camera Operator
- 2nd Unit:
- Richard Philpott
- Steadicam Operators
- Paul Edwards
- 2nd Unit:
- Dione Casey
- Visual Effects Supervision
- Val Wardlow
- Digital Effects/Animation
- CFX Associates
- Chris Panton
- Emma Bateman
- Projectionist
- Lionel Glass
- Art Directors
- Tom Bowyer
- 2nd Unit:
- Sarah Kane
- Storyboard Artist
- Chris Forster
- Costume Designer
- Dinah Collin
- Wardrobe Mistresses
- Wales:
- Jilly Thornley
- London:
- Una Nicholson
- Make-up
- Supervisor:
- Marina Monios
- Artists:
- Catherine Davies
- Roseanne Samuels
- Titles/Opticals
- General Screen Enterprises
- Music Performed by
- Philharmonia Orchestra of London
- Conductor:
- Allan Wilson
- Orchestrator:
- Tony Blondal
- Additional
- Additional Orchestration:
- Kerry Wikstrom
- Music Supervisors
- Paul Broucek
- Dana Sano
- Music Co-ordinator
- Bob Bowen
- Supervising Music Editor
- Richard Ford
- Music Recorder/Mixer
- Mike Ross-Trevor
- Soundtrack
- "Nothing Else" by Darius Keeler, Roya Arab, performed by Archive; "Send Me on My Way" by Mike Glabicki, Jim Donovan, Jenn Wetz, Liz Berlin, Jim Dispirito, John Buynak, Patrick Norman, performed by Rusted Root; "Bright Side of the Road" by/performed by Van Morrison; "Mi rival" by Maria Lara, performed by Antonio Machin; "Snatchin' It Back" by Clarence Carter, George Jackson, performed by Clarence Carter; "Have a Little Faith in Me" by/performed by John Hiatt; "You Can't Sit Down" by Dee Clarke, Cornell Muldrow, Kal Mann, performed by Booker T. and the M.G.s; "It's You" by Neville Egunton Staples, Sheena Staples, Tom Lowry, Kendal Smith, The Specials, performed by The Specials; "Piano Music" by/performed by Alan Hawksworth; "Valse Op 69/1" by Frédéric Chopin
- Sound Design
- Nicky De Beer
- Sound Recordists
- John Taylor
- 2nd Unit:
- Jeff Matthews
- Re-recording Engineer
- Mark Phillips
- Re-recording Mixer
- Robert Farr
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Danny Longhurst
- Dialogue Editors
- Elinor Hardy
- Charlotte Buys
- Pat Boxshall
- Stan White
- Effects Editor
- Jennie Evans
- ADR
- Editor:
- Sharron Hawkes
- Foley
- Artists:
- Juliette Phillips
- Charles Evans
- Flight Co-ordinator
- Richard Conway
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- Andreas Petrides
- 2nd Unit:
- Jim Dowdall
- Armourer
- Brian Halliday
- Cast
- Helena Bonham Carter
- Jane Hatchard
- Kenneth Branagh
- Richard
- Gemma Jones
- Anne
- Holly Aird
- Julie
- Ray Stevenson
- gigolo
- Sue Jones Davies
- Catherine
- Gwenyth Petty
- magistrate
- Robert Blythe
- farmer
- Aneirin Hughes
- doctor
- Natasha Williams
- care worker
- Sian Naiomi
- volunteer
- Ruth Jones
- Becky
- Nia Roberts
- ASDA teller
- Dilys Price
- Mrs Williams
- Jill James
- Mrs Allen
- Sidney Williams
- club owner
- Daryl Beeton
- club organiser
- Deborah Sheridan-Taylor
- shop assistant
- Frances Lima
- Julie's colleague
- Certificate
- tbc
- Distributor
- Buena Vista International (UK)
- tbc feet
- tbc minutes
- Dolby digital
- Colour by
- Rank Film Laboratories