Passengers

Passengers is a 2008 thriller film starring Anne Hathaway and Patrick Wilson. It is directed by Rodrigo Garcia and released by TriStar Pictures.

Plot. The movie begins when psychotherapist Claire Summers (played by Anne Hathaway) is called upon to treat a group of five survivors of a recent plane crash. From them, Claire becomes more intrigued with Eric (played by Eric Wilson) for he shows symptoms that suggest he is disguising his true feelings about the crush by making major life changes. Eventually, Claire becomes attached with him. However, her other patients begin to mysteriously disappear. She forms a theory that the airline is targeting them to prevent fears about a mechanical failure from spreading. She then instigates a secret investigation about the crash.

 

Upon Eric’s suggestion, Claire visits her estranged sister’s house to make peace with her. But her sister is not around the house; instead, she is greeted by an official from the airline who has been advising her not to investigate the crash. He reveals to her that all of the passengers of the plane died in the crash. He leaves behind a suitcase that contains a ledger of passenger’s names. In the list, Claire discovers that she too was on the flight. In a huge wave of realization, she remembers everything that happened. Claire goes to the docks to meet Eric on his boat.

She realizes that everyone she came into contact with over the last few weeks was actually dead; "ghosts" of friends and family who were trying to help her come to terms that she, and the other passengers, have died. As the movie ends, Claire's sister, Emma, and her husband are let into her now-abandoned apartment by the landlord, where she discovers a note Claire was planning to send to make peace with her.

Commentary. The movie tells about the ghost who remains in the earth to settle her unfinished business. She is unaware of it and only with her association with the other ghosts that she realizes her own death.

Passengers is one of Anne Hathaway’s less popular movies. Its failure to be well-received may be due to its plainness and ordinariness. The movie has a simple story and the plot did not successfully build a heart-breaking or a thrilling climax. It is painfully dull all throughout, even at the reveal of the twist in the end.

Reception. The film generally received negative reviews. Metacritic gave it a score of 40 out of 100, while Rotten Tomatoes gave it a rating of 21%.

Rating. I will give the film one and a half stars out of five. The movie is overall uninteresting though it has a good twist at the end. There’s nothing unique in it. Each scene feels sleepy and events are forgettable. Only the end will make you appreciate it. Even Hathaway’s and Wilson’s acting prowess did not save it. So the movie is far from being brilliant at all.

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