Going Totally Mental

I went into the movie Flightplan with a pretty good idea of how it was going to end. I didn't actually know, but, having seen the previews and understanding movie cliches and conventions, I had a pretty good idea of where it was going. And, as it turns out, I was about 90% right.

This is one of those "psychological thrillers", where all of the plot is derived from the fact that the main character may be having a psychotic break. (I wrote a post on this subject here.) The problem inherent with these types of movies is that you have two choices as to how to resolve that plot: a) the character is actually insane, or b) forces are conspiring to make the character seem crazy. The best way to resolve these movies is with (a), but most choose to go with (b), with terrible results.

Take The Forgotten, for example, where only Julianne Moore remembers that she once had a child. It may have been interesting to have her actually be delusional, but instead, they came up with an explanation of aliens changing history. That's some real bullshit.

But, even choice (a) can get fucked up. In Hide and Seek, a character's mental illness leads to the creation of a murderous alter ego, which is fine, except that the wrong character was mentally ill. (It also doesn't help that this movie has an Idiot Plot that could be resolved with this short Q&A session:
Father: "What does Charlie look like?"
Daughter: "Like you, daddy."
Father: "Am I Charlie?"
Daughter: "Yes."
And DeNiro is supposed to be a psychiatrist in that movie. Duuuh.)
Basically, what it comes down to is how well the film is made. You can fuck it up going either way, so you need to put some thought into how it's going to play out.

Which brings us back to Flightplan. Even though I went in pretty sure of how it was going to turn out, I didn't come out feeling like I'd been tricked. I didn't have a bunch of unanswered questions like, "Well, what about...?" or "Why didn't they...?", because the movie asks them before you think of them. They cover anything that might be a loophole. The plot doesn't cheat. It ends up in the only place it could have. It's an airtight movie that does exactly what it's supposed to. And for that, I commend it. (And recommend it.)