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Published on 7/23/08
Video
Survey
Is the 1962 French farce Boeing-Boeing, in which a philandering architect (Bradley Whitford) juggles three air-hostess girlfriends, irredeemably misogynist? Or is its nesting of adolescent desire in a clockwork structure a subtle critique of the phallocentric mechanization of late-capitalist Western sexuality? Who the hell cares?!? This is silly, sexy, supersonic fun.
Director Matthew Warchus has at his disposal a dream team of American cutups and Rob Howell’s retro-chic sets and costumes. (As the high-altitude honeys, Gina Gershon, Kathryn Hahn and Mary McCormack wear identically cut but color-differentiated uniforms.) Still, farce requires more than slick design; it needs perfect timing and fearless buffoonery. And, with the strange exception of Christine Baranski (hobbled by a heavy accent as Whitford’s dour French maid), this company has the goods. Whitford is cocksure as a playboy who gets off on cheating by timetable, but when his gals’ schedules overlap, his horrified reactions are a scream. (At one point, Whitford executes a double-take shriek-jump that turns into a half-split on the carpet.) Keeping expert pace is the astonishing Mark Rylance, whose mousy sidekick shtick mutates hilariously as he struggles to cover up for his friend.
Lastly and crucially, there are the three duped stewardesses: Gershon is the jealous, hot-tempered Italian; Hahn is a gold-digging American tramp; and McCormack is the bellowing, militant German. Sure, they’re stereotyped eye candy, but these exceedingly funny ladies lift their flimsy one-joke constructs 30,000 feet high.
