Life in Flight follows Will played by Patrick Wilson (Watchmen) who is a successful architect with a seemingly "perfect" life. A wonderful wife and child, a successful business that may soon be merging with a larger firm, and all the possibilities in front of him. Yet, from the opening scene it is decidedly clear that Will is not happy and looking for something more. Enter Kate (Lynn Collins from True Blood), a young designer who meets Will through a mutual friend. The two strike up a friendship over their mutual love of designing and the seeds are sown for Will to begin to look for that one little thing that’s been missing in life.
If the plot of Life in Flight sounds even slightly familiar, well it is. It is very much a by the numbers story of a man stopping to take stock of his life. Though rather than through himself into a whirlwind of a mid-life crisis Will merely begins to pay more attention to the details of life around him and notices that nothing is "what he wants". Where the film deviates from convention is that there's no torrid infidelity, drug or alcohol abuse or otherwise questionable behavior on the part of Will. In fact, it is all a little boring as many of the scenes involve someone talking at him very quickly while he sort of just zones out and watches the scene unfold. This is particularly true in scenes with his wife, played by Amy Smart (Crank) who seems the complete opposite of her husband; obsessed with status and fulfilling the expectations their friends and colleagues all have for them.
The characters for the most part are all stilted and one dimensional. It seems setup from the outset that we are supposed to like certain characters and hate others. There is very little grey area in the film. In fact, Will's young son seems to exhibit the most complexity of any of the characters and certainly more so than either of his parents.
There are a few nice touches here and there by writer/director Tracey Hecht. The camera work is very well done and she opts for wider shots encompassing multiple characters even during intimate conversations, using long cuts instead of jumping between close ups. Most of the film takes place in Brooklyn which always lends itself nicely to film.
The movie just drifts along through its scenes with often little actually going on. I recall more scenes of Will simply walking around the city or sitting at a desk than I do anything else. Even when things do happen, such as Will watching a boy in the back of his mother's car hold up a sign saying "flip me off" on the highway, they seem random. That scene in particularly certainly is funny, but it just feels out of place.
These random scenes would actually seem less so if the movie had some message or created a compelling conclusion. The truth though is that the movie lacks any substantive ending. We are left to surmise and infer what might happen in the near future, but for a movie that the whole time seemed to be building to something important and grand, to simply end as it does is a major disappointment. At only 77-minutes long the movie doesn't even feel rushed, but only because not much actually happens. In many ways it feels like the end of a television pilot than a feature film. As a television pilot it actually would work very nicely.
DVD Bonus Features
Aside from some basic captioning options and a trailer for the film there are no special features associated with this DVD. There is also scene selection.
"Life in Flight" is on sale November 30, 2010 and is not rated. Drama. Directed by Tracey Hect. Written by Tracey Hecht. Starring Amy Smart, Patrick Wilson.
