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Friday, March 21, 2003
Laugh-shy 'View From the Top' doesn't quite reach the top
Gwyneth Paltrow spends one scene in "View From the Top" confessing the film's message to a hard-of-hearing grandmother, and as she's weeping prettily in the living room, the woman smiles blankly and asks, "Who are you?"
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It's a strangely fitting scene for this comedy, in which big hair and Mike Myers with a crossed eye are played for laughs, yet received with amusement at best.
Part of the problem is that it dances into Spoofville, then jerks back into straight romantic comedy. It looks retro, down to the big Aqua Net hair and 1980s soundtrack (including five versions of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time), but it's not. Yet you can't help rooting for Paltrow, whose post-Oscar choices don't put her quite in Career Code Red, but who has been experimental in her recent choice of collaborators (Wes Anderson, the Farrelly brothers, Neil LaBute). She brings an earnest likability to Donna Jensen, even though she's made to wear tight vinyl microminis and halters through most of the film (though by the end she's back to Grace Kelly buns and natural blond hair).
Donna's goal is to rise above her small-town expectations, and she figures flying the friendly skies ("Paris, first class, international," to be more specific) is her ticket to success. But her ambition to climb the ladder at Royalty Airlines jeopardizes her budding romance with a cuddly cute lawyer ("You Can Count on Me's" Mark Ruffalo) and makes her question if career focus is really the key to happiness.
Even with a strong supporting cast -- Christina Applegate as a self-centered rival, Kelly Preston as a mentor and "The West Wing's" Joshua Malina as a gay flight attendant -- "View From the Top" could've been funnier. Yes, Myers has his moments and Paltrow has a memorable catfight in which she uses a giant bread roll to cushion her face when it's pushed into the ground. But there are more laughs to be wrought out of Myers' militant flight-attendant training school, and they're just not there.
Instead, all the zing (and the best lines) go to Candice Bergen, who as the world's most famous flight attendant (huh?) plays the sunny fairy godmother without a trace of acerbic bite. She's first class, and she steals the movie.
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