View From The Top (2002)

workplace comedy
directed by : Bruno Barreto
featuring : Gwyneth Paltrow - Mark Ruffalo - Candice Bergen - Christina Applegate - Mike Myers
running time : 1 hour 27 minutes
Brazilian filmmaker Bruno Barreto directs this comic look at the world of flight attendants starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Donna, a small town Nevada woman who dreams of seeing the world by becoming a first class international stewardess. Lacking the requisite poise and class, Donna finds a mentor in retired trade veteran Sally (Candice Bergen), a wealthy, best-selling author who assists with advice and her considerable influence. Despite Sally's help, Donna finds the process of fulfilling her career ambitions more difficult than she imagined when she’s betrayed by a trusted friend (Christina Applegate) during flight training, a daunting course taught by the bitter John Whitney (Mike Myers), a once-aspiring steward whose eye condition kept him forever out of the friendly skies. Donna also faces a romantic crisis when she falls for a handsome law student (Mark Ruffalo) whose education consigns him to Ohio, far away from the major urban hubs Donna dreams of working. View From The Top (2002) costars Rob Lowe, Josh Malina, Kelly Preston and Jon Polito.

A talented cast whiffs the tonal ball badly with this comedy misfire that takes a bizarrely off-kilter view of female empowerment. Although ostensibly set in modern times, the film plays like a relic from an era when "women's lib" was a new idea confined to college campuses and best-seller lists, when the open-busted, zero-G hemline of the stewardess or the rigidly starched white uniform of the nurse were the best professional garb to which a working girl could aspire. How strange then, that the heroine of this retro-misogynist fantasy should be played by a paragon of latter-Hollywood fem-power, Paltrow, the icon who "has it all," hitting the trifecta of ultra-successful career, rich and good-looking lovers, and actual talent and taste. Which is probably why, as a trailer-park dreamer, Platrow is surprisingly convincing and nimble-witted, even if at times the actress cannot hide her disdain for the weak material. Faring even better is Myers, the only real reason to see the film, in a supporting role that he cheekily tackles with self-referential zeal, winking at the audience and his cast mates in an almost-successful attempt to persuade everyone that the whole shebang is a mirthful, knowing put-on. It's only when Myers is offscreen unfortunately, all too often — that perplexed befuddlement reasserts itself. What world is this, after all, where being a stewardess is still glamorous, where a veteran stew can become a best-selling author and role model (Bergen), when an airline's training coordinator can be witlessly but sincerely referred to as "legendary"? Characters appear then disappear. Subplots are hinted at, then dismissed without so much as a fare-thee-well. Stewardess uniforms recall not any particular era in history but rather the haute couture of those paragons of style, The Jetsons. View From The Top is a god-awful mess of faux hilarity that not even an amped-up Myers can rescue, so pitiful is its deranged script and director Barreto's otherworldly interpretation thereof. If you want to make a comedy, remember to make it resonant, containing some recognizable semblance of reality, and especially remember to bring the funny. That's procedure.