Lovers have heavy baggage, but 'Jet Lag' flies on air

Friday, June 27, 2003

By PAULA NECHAK
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

The romantic comedy "Jet Lag" is set in an airport where flights are grounded by fog and a baggage strike. It's light and airy and, unlike the land-locked planes, runs the risk of nearly floating away into innocuous obscurity.

MOVIE REVIEW

JET LAG

DIRECTOR: Daniele Thompson

CAST: Juliette Binoche, Jean Reno

RUNNING TIME: 91 minutes

LANGUAGE: In French with English subtitles

RATING: R for language, brief sexuality

WHERE: Guild 45th

GRADE: B-

Director Daniele Thompson, who co-wrote the script with her son, Christopher, delights in disassembling relationships, just as she did in her previous comedy "La Buche," and, after much friction, putting them back together again with happy-ending glue.

While there aren't many surprises in "Jet Lag," there's joy in watching the film's stars -- the ever-likable Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno. They're cast against type, playing flawed strangers who very nearly pass in a night in which flights are canceled and a borrowed cell phone seals their fates.

Felix (Reno) is a former chef turned frozen-food magnate who is fussy and fraught with neurosis and a past marriage he can't quite forget. Because he liked his ex's grandmother, he's catching a flight to her funeral in Munich.

Rose (Binoche) is a beautician painted with too much makeup who's trying to flee her abusive boyfriend, Sergio (a swaggering, almost scary cameo by Sergi Lopez). She weeps on the phone with her mother and is an emotional softy. Alone, each is a mess; together they're only slightly less of a mess.

And that's the charm of the film. Even attraction and something that resembles love refuses to turn them into the perfect, glow- ing people who populate big Hollywood movies. Instead, the pair, riddled with insecurities and unclosed wounds, carp and snap at each other, even in the midst of budding affection.

They're less Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, who had gravity, wit and substance in their verbal sparring, than an oil-and-water clash of opposites who are grasping at a sec- ond chance. Binoche and Reno (who sports an awful haircut) have fun tweaking their invincible screen personas and play something that resembles middle-age goofiness while embracing love with a great deal of baggage attached.