Fearless

Peter Weir, USA 1993, 122 mins

A plane on a routine flight loses pressure. The captain warns the passengers that they are about to crash. Architect Max Klein (Jeff Bridges) had been afraid of flying yet now, as he faces imminent death, he is utterly calm and unafraid. The plane does crash, but not everyone is killed. Max survives and is able to calmly rescue other survivors from the wreckage. Then, as the emergency services arrive on the scene, the accidental hero departs and checks into a hotel as if nothing had happened.

Deep down Max has been changed by the crash. He no longer fears death - or anything for that matter.

Soon Max is recognised. He takes the plane back home and is re-united with his family. Max is also assigned a psychiatrist, who tries to help him make sense of his traumatic experiences, and a lawyer, who encourages Max to sue the airline for damages.

But Max's old life no longer matters to him. The only person with whom he feels any affinity is Carla (Rosie Perez), a fellow crash-survivor. Carla, meanwhile, is racked by guilt over her son's death in the crash, believing that the infant would still be alive if she had held onto him tighter.

Though Max's relationship with Carla is entirely innocent, at least on any physical level, wife Laura (Isabella Rossellini) suspects otherwise.

One of the recurrent themes of Peter Weir's films is culture clash - be it between the urban cop and the Amish of Witness; the anti-authoritarian teacher and the repressive school of Dead Poets Society, or the mismatched couple of Green Card. Fearless continues the director's exploration of this subject, in a more metaphysical guise. Here the clash is between the quasi-angelic Max and the everyday reality that constantly threatens to metaphorically clip his wings and bring him plummeting back to earth.

Weir's vision is ably assisted by superbly nuanced performances from the three leads. Jeff Bridges is particularly outstanding, brilliantly conveying the changes that the plane crash has wrought on Max's understanding of the world.

Keith H. Brown
EUFS Programme 1998-99