Blessed Stranger: After Flight 111

When I turned on the tv the morning after the crash and saw tape of the fishermen who had been the first to reach the crash site, my first thought was not for the dead but for those who had to deal with the horror of having hundreds of strangers die in their midst. For months afterward there were soldiers and sailors walking along the shore looking for debris, and ships trying to bring up wreckage. When the movie was made almost two years later it was still unthinkable to make it at Peggy's Cove where the crash took place. Many people objected to the film being made at all as being exploitative. So it is hard to be objective about the movie. I found it moving and sensitive, and was pleased to see it addressed the trauma of those on the ground. No movie ever suffered from having Kate Nelligan in it, of course, and the rest of the cast is restrained as befits the theme of unresolved grief. By all means see this one.

A slowly paced and very well written film that follows the parallel stories of the mother of one of flight 111's victims, and a fisherman who helps with the recovery effort. By opening after the crash, the film ablely conveys the horror and tragedy of it without resorting to gratuitous footage. Kate Nelligan plays the mother and gives a nuanced performance, conveying her transformation from shock to denial to grief with authenticity. The details of the fisherman's life are doled out in small samples only when needed, giving the character a richness and honesty that is compelling. Details such as how the victim's belongings are identified add to the immediacy and tragedy of the story without overwhelming the viewer. The writer develops the plot by using flashbacks to hint at what lies beneath the grief and shock that both characters feel. Despite the fact that a few of the other characters seem superfluous, as they are never developed, the core of the story is solid. Though a sense of the ending is predictable, the story never resorts to cliches and never becomes too saccharine, making the conclusion a satisfying one.

I am tempted to call this movie the "Testament" of air disaster movies. What I mean to say is that "Blessed Stranger" is to the gory air disaster movies like the "Airport" movies... just like "Testament" is to "The Day After" or "Threads". Instead of focusing on the destruction, the special effects, the disaster itself, it focuses on the aftermath, and the people behind it: the survivors.

Well, actually, there are no survivors since, as you know, when Swissair flight 111 went down, 229 people perished. The only survivors are the friends and family of the victims. Although the characters in "Blessed Stranger" are fictitious, the historical background is very realistic.

I loved this movie because it was very sensitive. I have rarely seen actors portraying their roles so well... or tears sound so real. Sure, you might get a tad bored of seeing people crying all the time, but that's the sad reality of grief. Kate Nelligan and Hugh Thompson are outstanding, respectively as the mother of one of the victims, and as a fisherman who helped the rescue efforts, which, as we know, became rather a body and debris collection mission afterwards.

Too bad it's just a made-for-TV movie, that will not be seen again, probably for a long long time. I'm glad that if anyone dared to make a movie out of Swissair flight 111, it was the Canadians, and they did it just right!

It's doubtful this will turn up anytime soon as an in flight movie. It is a very sensitive telling of events after the crash of Swissair Flight 111 off Peggy's Cove Nova Scotia.It's a terrific tear jerker but not in any shallow sense. Kate Nelligan demonstrates once more what an incredibly powerful actress she is. Not too often does an actress bring moisture to the corner of my eyes. Nelligan captured the horrible loss, sorrow, doubts, anguish, frustration and regrets of a bereaved parent so perfectly and without resorting to being maudlin or melodramatic. The lady is a national treasure! Not that the rest of the cast wasn't terrific too. This is a delightfully compassionate and richly human film, very sad but very beautiful.

Oh my gosh, I just got finished watching this show!! What a tear-jerker!! :( A show like this highlights the AMAZING talent in Canada, that often goes overlooked. Beautiful Kate Nelligan gave a strong performance as always. The whole show really pulled at the heart strings, but the final scene broke me down! Hugh Johnson did a TOTALLY believable job...you'd really think he IS the character, not an actor. He really should become a household name! A superlative soundtrack. A deep story about people, and a little bit of what is now Canadian history.

Kudos!