The Theory of Flight (1999)

Richard (Kenneth Branagh) is a frustrated artist plunging into a midlife crisis. He dumps his rather stuffy, professional girlfriend and tears apart his paintings to make a hang glider out of the canvases and stretchers. His maiden flight with the device lands him in court, where he is assigned community service. His first assignment is to serve as assistant to Jane (Helena Bonham Carter), a young woman with Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS). The disease is in its final stages, but she handles it with a bushel of attitude, her brain as sharp as ever. The two don't get off on the right foot, but eventually she reveals to him that she has yet to lose her virginity and would like for him to help arrange that to happen. He strikes on the distinctly harebrained idea of robbing a bank to pay for an oily gigolo, leading to some rather out-of-place comic scenes. Meanwhile, Richard has been cobbling together an airplane out of more paintings and garden-variety junk; the contraption makes the Wright Brothers' machine look like an F-15 fighter. Despite some missteps, The Theory of Flight is a funny, engaging character study; what could have been a maudlin, sentimental tearjerker is made very humane and believable by the performances of the two leads. Branagh's Richard is a craggy, troubled man who finds redemption in his friendship with Jane; the dynamic of their relationship (in contrast to the others' in Jane's life) causes one to think about the patronizing way we often deal with the disabled. --Jerry Renshaw Amazon.com

You are the wind beneath my wings...

Richard (Kenneth Branagh), a frustrated painter and would-be airplane builder, has a mid-life crisis and ends up afoul of the law. He's sentenced to community service and assigned to be a companion to Jane (Helen Bonham Carter), who is suffering with the end stages of ALS. She's sarcastic and angry and he's depressed, but eventually their frienship grows; then she asks him for a favor that only he can do.

This remarkably uplifting true story is funny and tragic and just plain wonderful. Carter is well-cast as the caustic young woman who wants to experience physical love just once before she dies. Branagh is tender and gentle as the man who dreams of flying. The ending is never in doubt, but the journey is engaging and will have you reaching for your tissues. Beautifully filmed in London and Wales. November 17, 2008

Interesting

This is a very unique take on a love story. The box labels it a romantic comedy but that's because there is no proper category for this film. It is at times: romantic, awkward, embarrassing, funny, sad etc. It is well worth your time. I found myself pleasantly surprised. At the beginning, it is a little hard to understand her but that's just because you have to adjust your listening skills to her cadence. I will definitely see it again. It is a very unusual movie. Not typical. So, if you want something different from your standard blockbuster video movies, watch this. June 24, 2008

One of my favorite movies

I can't believe this movie isn't even on DVD yet. It is a classic. With two of Britain's greatest actors. Wonderfully human, funny and intelligent. November 25, 2007

Theory doesn't take flight

"Theory of Flight" opens with Helena Bonham Carter,crippled in bed with ALS,watching porn. She wants to lose virginity before she dies. Enter Kenneth Branagh (so to speak),her then-real life boyfriend,as a failed aviator,who also happens to be saddled with a boring fiancee. Together,they collaborate on him "taking flight" and her losing her virginity.

While Jane (Helena Bonham Carter) is treated in a condescending way&assumed she's asexual because she's disabled,her relationship with Kenneth Branagh's character comes across as forced and contrived. Their "humor" as a couple isn't funny. Jane doesn't "suffer beautifully" like other movie heroines,but she doesn't come across as sympathetic either. She thinks her life will be meaningless if she dies a virgin.

The movie's few strengths are Branagh as a generally brittle,unsympathetic character who gradually warms to Jane (Carter was his girlfriend at the time) and the good try at direction by Paul Greengrass. One wonders if the movie is a vanity project with Branagh just "happening" to cast his real-life girlfriend as a woman who wants to be deflowered before she is deceased. As for Paul Greengrass,he has gone onto bigger and better things than this. After all,he directed "United 93" and "A Mighty Heart." October 21, 2007

A movie not a dcoumentary

This movie was one of the most beautiful movies I have seen in a while, and I watch alot of movies. It is not a deptiction of real life but what real life can be. I feel sory for the person who did not enjoy it because it did not show acurately the life of a person with ALS. This is a movie that can give someone with ALS wings. I got this idea by reading the coments from the widow of a someone who watched the movie with her late husband who had ALS and died from it. I believe her opinion is the only one that counts. But remember, this is a movie not a documentary. If you are going to pick on it for lack of acuracy than have at for a mountain of other movies who share its lack of acuracy, why stop with this one. There are some movies that show the beauty and the power of friendship, it transends the necsesity for real life acuracy. July 8, 2006

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