Una hostess tra le nuvole

Bruno Barreto's `View From the Top' boasts a cute premise that doesn't quite live up to its potential. The film starts out in a satirical vein, promising to deliver a nifty spoof of life in the friendly skies. Instead, it settles into a typical romantic comedy formula, not bad as these things go, but nothing to write home about either. So while `View from the Top' never soars very high, neither does it end up crashing and burning. In this day and age, one must be grateful for a safe landing, even if the ride is a bumpy one.

Gwyneth Paltrow delivers a winning performance as Donna, a small town girl who becomes a stewardess as a way of escaping her dysfunctional family and white trash upbringing. The first part of the film is fun, as Donna earns her wings flying for a cut-rate airline whose attendants dress and act more like prostitutes than stewardesses. With their form-fitting, cleavage-exposing blouses, purple hot pants and big hair, these pleasantly perky hostesses look like they're ready to serve their passengers more than just the customary coffee, tea or milk. So far, so good - but once the girls move onto a more `legitimate' airline, much of the satiric bite drains out of the film and we move onto the more familiar terrain of catty rivalries, long distance romance, and unrequited love.

In addition to Paltrow, the movie features Christina Applegate, Rob Lowe, Candice Bergen and Mark Ruffalo in various roles. Mike Myers is surprisingly annoying in the part of a cross-eyed stewardess trainer. The screenplay by Eric Wald has a maddening tendency to drop characters along the way, giving the film a slapdash, unformed and oddly amateurish quality. As partial compensation, the film boasts superb production and costume design and a generally ebullient spirit.

`View From the Top' doesn't end up flying us anywhere special and it's definitely coach all the way, but it does serve up a few laughs in mid flight.

Middle of the road comedy about the dreams and experiences of a small-town girl (Gwyneth Paltrow) who longs to be an international flight attendant.

Another forgettable comedy with (supposedly) high-powered talent that seems to be unused. Gwyneth does have a good comedic presence, and she looks good in the skimpy outfits, what with her lean, leggy body and all.

But it's all just light fluffy trek. The movie struggles to even fill its 87 minutes with substance. Basically just girl from small town, longing for high life and glamour, trials and tribulations achieving her goals, and final realization that love and home are really what cranks. My, my, original indeed.

Yes, Gwyneth is OK, not totally sleepwalking through this role. She obviously needs to be stretched artistically, though. The supporting cast don't provide much. Mike Myers' cross eyed instructor provides a few laughs, but seems mostly like an overplayed Saturday Night Live character.

Candice Bergen seems settled into these time-killer comedies, and that is her prerogative. As the grand damme of flight attendants, she does get a couple of humorous lines, and her lispy, stilted, staccato, deliberate vocal delivery is always funny to me.

5/10 because I did laugh a few times. When it's not funny though, it's not much.

It seems that too many people watch this movie with wrong expectations: first of all, it is supposed to be a mindless, silly comedy, and in that sense it does not fail. The very beginning of the film shows it clearly, so adjust your expectations accordingly, you Ms. Paltrow included :) I mean, there is Mike Myers in a role of an absolute idiotic instructor teaching flight attendants how to pronounce "assess" so it does not sound like "asses", and Gwyneth Paltrow in a role that takes full advantage of her good looks and portrays her as an unambitious (dumb?) blonde (in the first third of the film)... so if you are expecting some Kurosawa, or Bergman type depth, you are being delusional.

View from the top does have some shortcomings: first of all, it was being made just as 9/11 happened, and from what I gather, that influenced the story, editing and release quite a bit. Then, there is the strange cameo by Rob Lowe, which leaves an impression that it was meant to be more than just a cameo... but it ended up being a loose end. And there is a strangely inconsistent accent by Gwyneth Paltrow who usually gets it right ("Sliding Doors" comes to mind), so that leads me to believe that there was some serious amount of re-shooting which made for those inconsistencies...

Even with all that, the film comes loaded with good laughs, my favorite being scenes with Mike Myers who just nailed his role (but I understand that "haters gonna hate"), and even Gwyneth's reactions to his lunacy are priceless.

So, if you are expecting a terrific plot that would make Hitchcock jealous, move on, this is not that type of film. But if you are in for some guilty pleasure of silly laughs with some seriously good acting by the main actors (Gwyneth Paltrow, Mike Myers and Christina Applegate were all great), then you have come to the right place.

This film is really not as bad as people are making it to be. There is nothing wrong with using actresses good looks to make a funny film especially when the film has no pretenses at being another "Seventh Seal". If anything, we need more joy and fun in this world, and this film provides plenty of that.

p.s. Watch this film carefully, there are plenty of jokes that would be easy to miss if you are too busy eating popcorn.

p.p.s. BTW, Christina Applegate just proved again what a terrific actress she is! Wow!

I really cant believe some of the bad reviews of this movie that I have just been reading on here! The movie is EXACTLY what it promises to be; cute, charming, and yes, a little bit fluffy!! However, it does not take itself too seriously and that makes its flaws forgiveable. I thought it was very entertaining and refreshing, come on people, LIGHTEN UP!!

It starts on a promising note as one might have expected a 'Legally Blonde' type comedy even though Gwyneth Paltrow does not exactly pull off the dumb blonde act as well as Reese Witherspoon. There's a lot of hilarious comedy as the characters of the hotties: Kelly Preston, Christina Applegate and Paltrow meet and befriend one another. However, things slow down and get boring once the film shifts to the Ruffalo-Paltrow romance track. Among the cast only Christina Applegate stands out as the bitchy jealous friend-turned rival (even though she's played similar roles in 'Married with Children' and 'Friends') while Paltrow does an alright job. Ruffalo plays the typical love-interest and he has done better in 'Just Like Heaven'. Somewhere in the latter half of the film there's a hilarious cat-fight between Applegate and Paltrow which was fun to watch and in the end we get a glimpse of some bloopers (many of which are uninteresting). 'View From The Top' is forgettable. Having seen the trailer, I expected something hilarious but alas!