Starring: Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean

7 out of 10 stars

Ever since The Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster hasn't so much acted in movies as she has granted permission for her presence to inhabit a number of star vehicles. Once an amazingly intense actress who connected fiercely with her characters and initiated an instant empathy from her audiences, for the past ten years she's been coasting - there's no other way to put it. A look at her films from the 90s shows almost nothing but movies centered around making sure everyone knows how great Jodie is; they're worshipful in displaying how our fair heroine is noble (Sommersby), funny (Maverick), smart (Contact), brave (Panic Room), a heck of a clotheshorse (Anna and the King), and a really, really good actress-with-a-capital-A (Nell). Instead of getting Jodie Foster, we're getting a plasticized, commoditized version of her - Jodie Light, Essence of Jodie, Prepackaged Jodie. For all the trembling, crying, screaming or laughing she might do, she's rarely pierced the surface of her persona, and it feels like we're watching her from behind a protective plastic coating. Look, but don't touch.

It's possible Foster herself may have finally understood that she's gone from actress to movie star, as her most recent movie, Flightplan, is a small attempt to chink at the icy surface that seems to have grown over her - ironic considering the movie itself so chilly, austere, and inscrutable that it doesn't lend itself to the emotional too easily. Still, playing a variation on the mother lion role she also had in Panic Room, Foster lets herself be truly vulnerable for the first time in a long while, and in a number of ways: she doesn't shy away from showing the wrinkles on her face, she gracefully gives over scenes to other actors, and, most notably, she plays a character who isn't entirely likeable and heroic for the entire runtime of the movie. For brief moments of Flightplan, Foster seems all too frail and all too human, and you realize it's those qualities that have been missing from her previous performances.

That said, Flightplan is an engaging movie that is not easy to like, as it holds its audience at a distinct remove and doesn't give its thrills the visceral intensity we've grown to expect from slick Hollywood movies; there are a few moments of cathartic shocks, but it mostly ratchets up the tension in quiet, ever-increasing notches until your whole body is so tight it might snap. Kind of sounds like fun, but kind of sounds miserable too. This isn't a "fun" thriller - it's one that's bathed in sadness and seriousness, and its few jokes are less a puncturing of the atmosphere than they are nervous laughter in the face of crisis. The plot is all easy set-up: Kyle Pratt (Foster), a grieving widow, is taking her dead husband's coffin back from Berlin to New York on a jumbo jet she helped design. Along with Kyle is her pale ghost-of-a-daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston), who's so tiny that she appears to be enveloped by her window seat. After takeoff, Kyle takes a brief catnap, only to wake up with her daughter gone, and no one having remembered seeing her. What's worse, she's not on the passenger manifest, and her suitcase has disappeared too.

A healthy mix of paranoia and dread, the schematics of Flightplan are easy to figure out, but surprisingly, director Robert Schwentke distracts you from the overall plot arcs by focusing on the characters and details. You're too busy noticing how huge and pretty the plane is, or watching each of the actors intensely to see which one could be a potential bad guy, to put the mystery-solving part of your brain into action; it's almost as if Schwentke (and Foster) have gripped you by the shoulders and are forcing you to look into their eyes, while somewhere in the background there might be a clue as to Julia's whereabouts, or lack thereof. Schwentke's camera rarely leaves Foster (and when it does, the movie noticeably falters), and his leading lady's chilly reserve and lack of sympathy actually work in her favor. Instead of bravura, over-the-top emotions, there are tiny pinprick moments of clarity in Foster's performance, and though Kyle is not a big, prepackaged heroine, we come to respect her rather than sympathize with her. It's a bit of a gamble, but Foster's trademark intensity brings it off, and even as she's strung to her limits, she never breaks stride.

With Schwentke's relentless focus on Foster, only a few of the characters shine as brightly as she does, primarily Sean Bean as the airplane's pilot and Peter Sarsgaard as an air marshal, both of whom try to help this strange lady despite their better instincts. (Bean in particular is surprisingly graceful, and his and Foster's interaction have the faintest glimmers of romantic chemistry.) It helps that Foster gives over the screen to them in a number of scenes, with Bean almost as regal as a king and Sarsgaard suppressing his anger through gritted teeth and slit eyes. The rest of the cast is primarily holdovers from any Airport-style movie, playing stock airline passengers with the requisite anger, fear, or obstinacy, though the lovely, pillow-lipped Kate Beahan is strangely captivating as a flight attendant as steely professional as she is beautiful. Ultimately, you'll be able to figure out the central mystery of Flightplan rather quickly, and the climax is a requisite cat-and-mouse game that's been done many times, but its smarts and determination ultimately win you over, just as Foster does. Strangely, in playing it close to the vest, Foster manages to open herself up more than she has in a long time.