Product: Passengers (2008)
Rating: 3.0
Concentrate on the Title
On the surface PASSENGERS is the story about airplane crash following which the airline hires a psychologist Dr Claire Summers (Anne Hathaway) to hold group therapy sessions for those PTSD survivors. The group is strange, not so much for the crash but more for the lives they've lived leading up to the crash - or so Claire believes. Claire is particularly drawn to Eric (Patrick Wilson) who seems somehow above the emotional trauma and indeed begins to 'court' Claire with requests for house calls, incidents that lead to a romance. Gradually the survivors in Claire's therapy group disappear and Claire is made suspicious of the cause of the accident, a fact that disturbs the airline person Arkin (David Morse). Eric's strange behavior as well as the appearance of the odd character Toni (Dianne Wiest) and the counsel from Claire's colleague Perry (Andre Braugher) begin to unravel a mystery that is finally made clear in the closing moments of the film. To say more would be to spoil the ending.PASSENGERS is not a great movie but it is a fairly good and well-acted suspense/romance drama. The cast is solid but the direction by Rodrigo García of the Swiss cheese script by Ronnie Christensen is shaky: the premise is good but the getting there is full of potholes and road kill. Nevertheless it is a good little diversion of a film for a rainy night. And the actors do their very best to make it better than it is. The pleasure comes after the ending is revealed and sets up the audience for some serious introspection. Grady Harp, March 10