Les Passagers

Claire Summers (Anne Hathaway) is a young therapist assigned by her mentor Perry (Andre Braugher) to counsel the five survivors of a horrendous plane crash with 109 on board. Eric Clark (Patrick Wilson) is feeling a little too good. Shannon (Clea DuVall), Dean (Ryan Robbins), Janice (Chelah Horsdal) and Norman (Don Thompson) have varying recollections including an explosion. Mr. Arkin (David Morse) is from the airlines who insists it's pilot's error and not an explosion. Toni (Dianne Wiest) is her nosy neighbor. Eric is having nightmares and tells Claire to contact her sister Emma who he should not know about. Claire is fascinated with him. The survivors start disappearing. She starts falling for Eric.

There is murky moody mystery with supernatural undertones in this that is sort of interesting. The early promise slows down to a crawl as the movie turns to the romantic angle. I just lose the general direction of the movie. It doesn't build on the early tension. The sense of paranoia doesn't get raised. Director Rodrigo García simply fails to ramp up the movie. There is no excuse with so many great compelling actors around. Then the last 30 minutes try to re-engage but it culminates in an unsatisfying ending that is done way too much anyways.

A film where only cast makes the difference, in fact without the skills of Patrick Wilson and Anne Hathaway "Passengers" would have just been a melodramatic mess. This isn't certainly a very original or scary film (although reminds a lot "The 6th Sense" and "The others"), but it's not the worst either, due to some interesting twists. Anne Hathaway is a talented actress and gets to make feel her fear and frustration. She got chemistry with Wilson and they end up being plausible by complementing one another. "Passengers" is not a movie I would strongly recommend but the shocking finale and some good acting performances make a decent (barely decent actually) choice for an evening rental.

I enjoyed this movie, but you need to be wary about how it's being described as a drama- horror-thriller. It's far more a drama than thriller, and I can't think of any horror elements in it at all. I don't want to give any of the movie away, so I'd like to describe what might make it more likely that you'd enjoy it.

Passengers concentrates on character development and primarily on Claire Summer (Anne Hathaway), a therapist who suspects she's discovered a cover-up while treating the survivors of an airplane crash, but also deals with her awakening to the reality that she's sacrificed too much personal life for her career. Her loneliness is as important to this movie as the mystery she's trying to unravel.

I liked Hathaway in this role. I wouldn't normally have thought of her as playing the part of a professional woman with two Masters degrees, as she usually conveys beauty and warmth instead of intellect. However, she's portraying a young academic on her first real-world case and she's convincing when she spouts the predictable, psychobabble an inexperienced therapist would likely spout. I also liked her relationship with her mentor Perry (Andre Braugher). The only weakness in the film might be insufficient scenes exploring her loneliness. It's the reason she gets involved with Eric (Patrick Wilson) but it should have been set up better. I'm not sure we're entirely convinced she would have gotten involved with him. Her isolation from family and friends should have been developed more.

It's not a great movie, but I did enjoy it, and I don't find the complaints I've heard about the movie credible; that it's slow and derivative. North Americans have developed such short attention spans, "slow" often only means there's not a car crash every few minutes. Yes, it's derivative, but so is Eagle Eye, a film currently doing very well at the box-office, which is obscenely derivative, but it doesn't seem to bother anyone since it's loaded with car crashes and other mindless action. (Eagle Eye is also appallingly dumb!)

If you're looking for a drama with some elements of suspense which takes it's characters seriously, then I would recommend it.

...but I was very affected by this film. It was inspired by another film, but I can't give you the name as it will spoil the movie for you. You'll know if you watch it.

Anne Hathaway is Claire, a counselor who is assigned by her boss (Andre Braugher) to help survivors of a plane crash. One of the survivors, Eric, seems not to have been bothered at all, but he makes an appointment to see Claire privately. For the others, she sets up a group therapy session.

We see Claire as a dedicated career woman with a nosy neighbor (Dianne Weist), and she seems to be on the outs with her sister, whom she is trying to reach. Eric proves to be problematic. Since the accident, he's become quite the daredevil and encouraging her to be the same way; he shows up at her apartment late at night; and she's falling for him.

Less and less people show up to the therapy sessions, and Claire wonders about the man hovering outside during the sessions, who seems to be from the airline. She begins to suspect a conspiracy - he is too interested in peoples' accounts of the crash, which differ from the party line, and she thinks he may have something to do with the passengers disappearing.

This is a slow film, but stay with it. It's quite powerful. Anne Hathaway gives a lovely performance as Claire, and Patrick Wilson is effective and likable as Eric, resembling a young Paul Newman.

I admit I shed some tears. Don't listen to the twenty-something year-old guys who populate IMDb (unless you're one yourself; then by all means, listen to them). Just enjoy the movie.

I'd like to start off by saying I began watching this movie with a little suspicion, because I checked the ratings here and they weren't really high.

Well, my suspicion wasn't necessary. This movie isn't all about action, explosions and that sort of things. What is does have is a heart, it shows the bond between people and it explains why that bond takes place. Just not in a corny way, this is more of a mix between real-life personalities, suspension, and a big plot-twist at the end kind of like Hitchcock did back in the days. Just not that elaborate. Some comments on this movie say that it lacks originality, but what movie doesn't do that these days ? Almost everything has already been done over and over again.

As concerns the quality of acting, it's just good. Nothing more but certainly nothing less. It's nice to see Anne Hathaway play a different sort of role, besides comedy. Her co-star Patrick Wilson also performs on a high wire. Andre Braugher and David Morse are good at supporting roles and thats is simply what they did in this one. You can't say that the acting wasn't good, therefore I feel sorry that it hasn't been properly promoted because it would have had some potential to getting to be a popular movie.

Conclusion: Like I said in the beginning, it's good, just not a masterpiece. I suggest you watch it and go with the flow, you won't regret it.