Le drame du vol 111

This film just had an airing on UK television. I have to say just how unexpectedly good it was. A complete surprise. You rarely get performances as good as this in TV films of this nature. I suppose the fact that it was a Canadian production was a factor. It portrays ordinary people going through some traumatic times, and it does so with an immense amount of tact and feeling. It is heart-wrenching at points which isn't surprising considering the subject matter, but it is well worth keeping a look out for. Gently, and profoundly moving, with excellent location shooting and an apt musical score. Wish I had taped it. These sort of productions never seem to have any kind of review prior to transmission so there is never any way to know whether or not it is likely to be any good.

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.

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.

This movie tackled closure, which is probably the hardest part of grieving, especially after a disaster. I will never again be able to watch a disaster on the news, without thinking about this film. Much of the film deals with the trauma experienced by families of the victims. Even though it followed the grief of just one of the families, you just new that it represented all of them. We also see the heart wrenching effect it had on one of the fishermen and his family, and once again can sense the effect that it had on the whole community. But by involving the residents, rescuers, medical examiners, and even the media, it broke away from the usual corny disaster movies. If this had been Crowe and Winslett I don't think I would have respected it so much. Not knowing any of the actors helped me appreciate it more. I just couldn't see Nelligan worrying about her makeup or hair. I thought Thomson must have been a fisherman before turning to acting. I really respect this film. Everyone involved should be proud of it.

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!