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Year of release : 2003
Run time : 1h27m
Genre : Comedy / Romance
Cast : Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Rufallo, Christina Applegate, Mike Myers, Candice Bergen, Kelly Preston
Donna, who lives with her mother who has been married 4 times, dreams of leaving Silver Springs as soon as she can. She gets a job at the Big Lots, in the luggage department due to her boyfriend, who already worked there.
On her birthday, her boyfriend leaves her a letter pinned on a magnet on her locker, but when she sees him, he takes it off. Thinking it’s a birthday card, Donna wants to read it, and finds out the guy wrote her a break-up note on her birthday! He also tells her she’s a small town girl, who doesn’t belong in Tucson, where he’s being transferred, so he takes another girl!
Celebrating her birthday alone, drowning her sorrows, she hears former stewardess Sally Weston, author of “My life in the sky” on tv, and decides to become a stewardess.
She interviews for the regional Sierra Airlines, and freaks out on the first flight. Luckily, she doesn’t get fired, and becomes the best stewardess, even getting her own apprentice, Christine.
She becomes friends with the two stewardesses of the airline, and on one of their weekend outings tanning by the lake, she meets Ted, who asks her out.
While on a break, at a diner, Donna and her friends see rich stewardesses, and she convinces the other two they are as good as those, and apply for Royalty Airlines.
One of her friends fails the interview, and goes back home, but Donna and Christine get accepted. While studying and training for the big exam, it’s obvious Christine is not gonna make it, but ironically, Donna is the one who gets a domestic route in Cleveland, while Christine gets New York.
Donna thinks it must be a mistake, but her teacher won’t listen, and is not interested in looking over her paper again.
In Cleveland, she meets Ted again (who was not interested in a long distance relationship), and start dating.
About a year goes by, and she meets Christine, who still steals everything she can get her hands on (she stole the soap in Sally Weston’s house when invited over). Donna tells her this could led to her being fired from the airline, if she is found out, as it’s against regulations.
During this time, her colleague is also amazed she landed in Cleveland with him, while she was the best in her class. After Christine finds herself telling Donna about a customer who wanted to put his big musical case in the overhead compartment, she realizes Christine couldn’t have passed the exam, as that was the last question of the exam, which she didn’t know how to deal with, in real life. So she contacts her mentor, Sally Weston, who asks for her exam paper. And Donna sees the hearts Christine puts over the I’s (her signature trade mark).
Sally realizes Christine was the one stealing all the soap in her bathroom, and she probably steals from the airline, so she puts someone on her.
I personally enjoyed the movie. It’s a light hearted comedy, about following your dreams while figuring out how to get everything, not just the career, but the love too.
I found the ending a bit ridiculous, though, as we see her as a pilot, meaning, she doesn’t spend much time home, with her man, the career is much more important. This is a common theme in the movie, as she chooses her career, over him in a second, the moment she finds out her exam paper was replaced. That was one thing I didn’t like about the movie, because she seemed a bit like her ex.
The acting was good.
Rob Lowe and Stacey Dash make cameo appearances.
The soundtrack was Ok.
The movie received negative reviews ( having a 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 27 out of 100 score on Metacritic), and grossed 19.5 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 30 million, being a flop.
The movie was supposed to be released around the Christmas of 2001,but the attacks of that year made the producers push the movie back a few years.
You can watch the full movie for free, if you follow this link :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBb7MZgKbqM
Rating : Worth a watch !