The Theory of Flight

Paul Greengrass made this long before the Bourne films and United 93, when he was still a director coming out of television and documentary. The handheld camera and the obsession with authenticity of his later work are absent; this is softer and smaller. A young woman with motor neurone disease and a man trying to fly. Jane is becoming steadily immobile and wants one thing before she dies: to have sex. Richard, who tried to fly a machine he built himself and jumped off a building doing it, has been sentenced to community service and has come loose from his own life. The court assigns him to look after her; she has driven off every carer before him. What works is that the film treats Jane's request not as a device for pathos but as a practical problem. Richard turns her down, trying to hold on to his own relationship, but offers to pay for a gigolo instead. Richard Hawkins wrote the screenplay. Helena Bonham Carter plays Jane and Kenneth Branagh plays Richard. Her performance is the most praised element. Who it is for: viewers who like two-hander British drama that handles illness without turning it into melodrama. Who it is not for: anyone expecting Greengrass's known style. This film has almost nothing to do with his later cinema, and the script is too tidy in places.