Passengers

My brief look at some recent Anne Hathaway films ends with Passengers, which completely flew under my radar when it was released in 2008. It's a stylish paranoid thriller directed by Rodrigo Garcia that recalls better films in its structure and its twist ending.

Hathaway plays a grief counselor who is assigned to work with a handful of survivors of a plane crash. One of them is Patrick Wilson, who resists her therapy but is interested in her personally. They end up in a clinch, but there's something fishy going on, as an airline representative pressures her to ignore the passengers' claims that there was an explosion on board, and the passengers start going missing. And what's up with Hathaway's solicitous neighbor, played by Dianne Wiest?

The ending is Shamalyanesque, and after a few years of films like this many will figure it out. It gives the movie a much-needed boost, but it's lack of originality will cause seasoned moviegoers to roll some eyes. It also doesn't make up for the tedium of the first two-thirds of the movie.

There's a lot of good actors in the movie. Besides Hathaway (who again looks like she's lit from within) and Wiest are Andre Braugher, David Morse and Clea Duvall, but ultimately this film is a disappointment.