Movie Review: Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman

ROUNDUP REVIEW: FLYING: CONFESSIONS OF A FREE WOMAN

(2-1/2 stars)

We all have one: that friend who is so profoundly narcissistic, so unabashedly self-involved in her admittedly entertaining life, that we occasionally find ourselves wondering why we've remained in this person's exhausting presence for so long. But just as if sensing that we're inching toward the door, the friend rewards us with a pearl of hard-won, universal wisdom, delivered with a self-deprecating laugh. And we stick around to see what happens next.

If this sounds familiar and not wholly unpleasant, you're well prepared for "Flying," Jennifer Fox's marathon excursion into her own heart and mind, thinly disguised as a documentary. In the course of the film's six hours, Fox, a filmmaker whose previous work includes 1999's "An American Love Story," reveals her unhappy, upper-middle-class upbringing, her sex life, her failed pregnancies, her difficult mother and her hang-ups about relationships and marriage.

These confessions emerge as monologues and in conversation as Fox travels the world, interviewing female friends and colleagues in Russia, Pakistan, India, South Africa and the U.K., among others, about their rapidly mutating roles and new freedoms, some of which are accompanied by considerable risk. Ostensibly visiting these women to discuss their lives - the Somali refugees in England crusading against female circumcision, the indefatigable human rights lawyer in India who good-naturedly refuses to marry for the sake of marriage - Fox somehow manages to turn the conversation, and the camera, back to herself and her various and numerous neuroses. There is something acutely embarrassing about watching Fox in conversation with her friend who's just been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, deftly steering the focus back to her own mother issues and romantic imbroglios.

(Those entanglements, as we are incessantly reminded, involve two men, whom Fox unselfconsciously refers to as "lovers," one of whom is married and the other of whom lives in Switzerland. In other words, neither man is exactly ideal. And yes, Fox has been in therapy. For 20 years.)

But while Fox's revelatory process is by turns exhausting and frankly annoying, she is gifted at drawing people out - and her journeys provide a remarkably honest window into the psyche of "modern" women, whose lives are no longer necessarily defined by their roles as mothers and wives.

And despite Fox's excruciating level of self-involvement, she manages, more than once, to lay bare critical questions that are at once familiar and compelling: What does it mean to be in love? Do women's biological imperatives and responsibilities mean they can never achieve truly equal footing in romantic relationships with men? Does marriage destroy romantic love? When is the best time to have children? Is it possible to be a mother and remain an independent woman? Is choosing to remain single an act of rebellion?

The only problem with these gems is that they are buried underneath six hours' worth of only moderately entertaining navel-gazing. "Flying" is shown as a three-part film series, but it would benefit immeasurably from being divided into a six-part television series. Sixty minutes per sitting is precisely the right amount of time to spend with Fox - enough to establish a relationship with the filmmaker, but not so long that you're surreptitiously glancing at your watch, plotting your escape.

Running time: 5:50. Opens Friday at the Gene Siskel Film Center; $21 admission for three sections; call 312-846-2600 or visit www.siskelfilmcenter.org. No MPAA rating (film includes frank language about sex and anatomy).