FLIGHTPLAN

Flightplan is a movie which is directed by Robert Schwentke, and produced by Brian Grazer. It hosts Jodie Foster playing Kyle Pratt as the leading character, in a film about a woman who loses her husband after he falls from a building. She is summoned to Long Island by plane with her daughter in order to bury her husband; however her trip takes a turn for the worst when her daughter is kidnapped, and all documentary statements proving she was a passenger on the plane have been erased. Background information on Jodie Foster shows that she is known for being an actress who likes to put herself into the spotlight by starring in hard-hitting memorable films; the most well known being Silence of the Lambs, where she played Clarice Starling, and the Accused (A film about her being abused and raped 1988) where she had won her 1st academy award.

The film was made in 2005, which is important as this was a time-period where which females felt they belonged and that there was no real segregation through work pay etc. In this movie, Kyle Pratt is made out to be insane and told that her child never boarded the plane. Throughout many scenes, her madness is reiterated through camera angles, such as that taken when she is talking to the captain of the plane. In this scene we see a 360 degree shot where she is depicted as a mad woman as most of the people in the room were men, and were looking at her madly; in relation to this, the two women in the room were also looking at her madly which could emphasise a point of women being groomed into a man’s sidekick. This shows that post modernist feminism exists as it shows the theory of everyone being against her, and her having to survive and fend for herself.

This film is patriarchal, but the stereotype is questionable, as she dominates the film. Although she is being helped by a male police officer, it is obvious that the crew still don’t believe anything she says. This is because through normalisation, people are taught, or brought up usually thinking and believing that men are the most constructive force, and that women are merely ‘offspring’ who have no say in situations unless there is a male voice of approval.

There is a scene in the film where the Kyle sends across the message that she is mad, in order to draw less attention to herself. This is shown when the psychiatrist is seen speaking to her and she breathes into the window, and sees the heart which her daughter drew on the window hours before. This can show us that the only way females in the film, and reflected in society, can make their voice heard is by going along with the male voice, and having a male to back up their situation. Concluding this with the point of females never actually being equal to men, they are in fact more subordinate.