BEFORE: This is a last-minute drop-in, I realized this is currently airing on cable, it fits in with the theme, and I've been ignoring this film when scanning through the on-screen guide. It means I may have to double-up, and watch an extra movie this month, but sometimes I just have to follow where the linking leads me. Alexandra Daddario carries over from "The Layover", and she gets an upgrade now to a 4-film chain. Come on, let's finish this year's romance chain strong so I can move on to other topics...
Let's do a quick check-in on This Day in Women's History - March 7,1894 was the birthday of Ana Maria O'Neill, Puerto Rican educator, author and advocate of women's rights. March 7, 1917 was the birthday of Janet Collins, one of the pioneers of Black ballet dancing and choreographer, and also Betty Holberton, one of the six original computer programmers of ENIAC. On March 7, 1938, Janet Guthrie was born, she was the first woman to compete in both the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500.
THE PLOT: Thinking they're about to crash, Emma spills her secrets to a stranger on a plane. At least she thought he was a stranger, until she later meets Jack, her company's young CEO, who now knows every humiliating detail about her.
AFTER: We live in an age of wonders, if you think about it - we got a COVID-19 vaccine made in record time, and though distribution has been a little slow, it's been steady and speeding up. The original timeline that said it would take nearly 10 years to vaccinate a majority of the population (based on December's vaccination rate, of course) has now been revised, first to ten months, then eight months and now it's more like two more months. Fantastic. Once we get this sorted out I wish we could then, as a species, turn our attention to solving something else like climate change or overpopulation or saving endangered species with the same determination. And once things return to normal-ish, we can do things like travel again - and appreciate the fact that each day thousands of people fly in airplanes and the vast majority of them survive the process. I don't think that gets enough appreciation, that we climb on board big crafts made of metal that are heavier than air and somehow defy gravity and get us across the country in a matter of hours, because 100 years ago that wasn't even possible. Life in 2021 hardly even resembles life in 1921, except for the whole recovering-from-a-pandemic thing.
So who's to fault poor Emma Corrigan, who deals with a little airplane turbulence by vocalizing all of her regrets and failures and secrets, because naturally she assumes that she's about to die? Ehh, it's still a bit of a stretch - mostly a contrivance here, I mean we've all heard about people with guilty consciences confessing things when they think they're about to die - the most noted in film was probably that scene in "Almost Famous" where the band is on a small single-engine plane (notoriously responsible for the death of notable rock legends) and when they encounter turbulence, all the personal secrets and confessions come out. It's also very contrived, especially because the co-pilot prompted it to happen, when it could have been spontaneous, but it's still a funny scene. Still, I'm guessing this sort of thing happens more in movies and in urban legends than in real life. I mean, you've held on to these deep, dark secrets for years, at that point what's a few more minutes?
Why, it's almost like the character lets loose with all these embarrassing details about her life, regrets and mistakes she's made, just so they can be used against her later on. Ya think? She also keeps on going, after the turbulence is over, right up until the plane lands, and the man next to her never stops her? His excuse is that it seemed like she really needed to open up to somebody. Can the life of a mid-level marketing coordinator for a line of organic foods and beverages really be all that dramatic and intriguing? Sorry, millennials, on the whole your entire generation is just not that interesting, you sad entitled bitches. Go post something on Instagram or bitch about how there was no oat milk for your latte on TikTok.
In a contrivance that could only happen in a movie (or, umm, the book this movie is based on), the man in the seat next to Emma turns out to be the silent partner CEO of the company she works for, and somehow she worked at that company without ever knowing what that man looked like - how convenient that his recently-departed business partner was the public face of the company while he stayed out of the public eye. And how convenient that Emma got upgraded to the first-class section of the plane without even requesting it, which I don't think is a thing that even happens, not this way. Sure, planes want to fill all their seats, but isn't it much more likely that if first-class seats were available they would make some kind of pre-boarding announcement to try to get some of the coach passengers to spend money or miles to get into those seats? Wouldn't some of the coach passengers have probably asked to be on the standby upgrade list? The flight attendants don't usually pick a passenger at random, somebody who looks like they'd really add some class to first-class and give them an upgrade for FREE, so once again we learn that screenwriters don't really know much about how airports work. (It's also the second film in row where Alexandra Daddario's character has some kind of romance with a man she meets on a plane. Sure, love can blossom anywhere, but when I'm on a plane the first concern is not dying, and the second concern is then arriving on time, and the third concern is getting to baggage claim before somebody walks off with my bag. Security doesn't check claim tickets at baggage pick-up any more, why is that?)
This quickie review of her life and regrets is a wake-up call for Emma, and she realizes that she's only going through the motions with her boyfriend, and a lot of his actions actually annoy her, and perhaps she's never really been in love. Hmm, or maybe sitting next to a more handsome stranger on that flight just kind of put things in perspective? Potato, po-TAH-to. There's one last attempt to put the spark back in her current relationship, and when that doesn't work, it's splitsville. Extremely also-conveniently, this is when the boss sees fit to ask her out - he knows all of her secrets by now, and surprisingly there are no deal-breakers in the mix, so why not?
I'll tell you why not - dating the boss is a terrible, terrible idea. Misguided at best, but then again so is nearly everything in this film. The balance is off from the get-go, with him knowing everything about her and her knowing almost nothing about him. Plus there's the whole power thing - didn't women collectively learn anything from the #metoo movement? I mean, sure, men shouldn't abuse their power in the workplace, duh, but also women should maybe take care to not set up situations where those powerful men have the opportunity to do that - and that means that dating the boss is a huge no-no. Plus, as the movie correctly points out, any success she has at the office, any promotion or bonus or opportunity that she gets, even if rightfully earned, is going to be viewed differently by anyone who knows that she's in a relationship with the boss. She'll have to work twice as hard now to deserve everything she's offered, and who wants that? Better to just nix the situation in the first place, turn him down, or if the relationship means that much to her, change jobs and then date him.
Everything here is so clunky, so awkward and it appears to be intentionally so - the good news is that this is where Alexandra Daddario excels as an actress, her characters tend to be awkward and almost desperate to be liked, somewhat clumsy and unconfident. This can be appealing in a comedy, but only up to a point, really. If it's overdone then the awkwardness can spill over to become annoying, especially when the film states every point three times and really draws out the awkward scenes to be much longer than necessary.
Screenwriters also appear to have no idea how business meetings work either, they're a cowardly lot, it turns out. Instead of researching a pitch meeting or a strategy session, they just make characters sit around a table and say, "We've got to align our core competency with our demographics and maximize our profitability by building on our corporate image. Questions, anyone?" Yeah, I've got a question, what the hell did she just say? Maybe this is just there to make the main character sound brilliant when she suggests, "Hey, we could sell to older people!" Because apparently the marketing department was so focused on landing millennial buyers that they forgot that baby boomers and Generation X eat food, too? Fire those people.
Emma also has too many confidants, she's got the two roommates, plus the male friend - it's like having too many animal sidekicks in a Disney movie. I shouldn't have to work to keep track of what she's told to each one of her friends, and what relationship advice she got from whom. There are also way too many side-plots that go nowhere, from the roommate that dresses inappropriately to the dancing lawyers to the other friend who helps women fix up their apartments. We. Just. Don't. Care.
Also starring Tyler Hoechlin (last seen in "Hall Pass"), Sunita Mani (last seen in "Wine Country"), Laverne Cox (last seen in "Charlie's Angels" (2019)), Kimiko Glenn (last heard in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse"), Bobby Tisdale (last seen in "Between Two Ferns: The Movie"), Kate Easton, David Ebert, Robert King, Sam Asghari, Judah Friedlander (last seen in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", wait, what?)
RATING: 5 out of 10 overhead compartments
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