Following a series of personal problems, Richard (Kenneth Branagh) finds himself acting as a support worker for Jane (Helena Bonham Carter), a young woman with motor neurone disease.
Despite her attempts to get rid of him, Jane and Richard eventually become friends.
After showing her his prototype for a flying machine, Jane asks Richard to help her accomplish her own goal...
Paul Greengrass's second theatrical narrative feature, The Theory of Flight bears almost no similarities with his later work.
More fantastical in concept and sentimental in execution, it is a strange signpost in his career - if it had been a success, it is possible his career might have taken a somewhat different turn.
The one aspect of the film which feels of a piece with his other work is its focus on the sexuality of its central character.
Jane wants to have sex before she dies, and in this aspect of her motivations - and Bonham Carter's performance - one can perhaps see what Greengrass locked onto.
Scratching beneath the slightly punk-ish exterior, the film's conception of Jane does not fall too far outside the familiar stereotype disabled characters generally fall into: in spite of her own goals, she stills acts as a wise advisor and catalyst for Richard to sort out his life.
But while the character's trajectory is obvious, there is a sliver of salt amid the sweet sentimentality of the story which I could not dismiss.
And there are a lot of things to dismiss The Theory of Flight over:
Most obviously, the score is a travesty. Awash in flooding the viewer with a sense of treacly sentimentality, it is out of a different movie.
One element of the story I barely mentioned is Richard's obsession with flight. It takes up about half the movie, and is the one thing Richard can focus on outside of his relationship with Jane.
It feels like the kind of ridiculous subplot out of a novel, and it fits awkwardly here. And the movie takes it up another notch in the third act, when Richard arbitrarily decides to finance Jane's encounter with a gigolo (Ray Stevenson) by robbing a bank.
One of the most interesting aspects of the film is its focus on disabled people's sexual desires. But with all this other nonsense in this movie, one wishes the film were more concerned with Jane's inner life as much as Richard's.
At one point, Richard takes Jane to an organised date night for disabled people, and she flees. Initially it feels like an interesting complication - despite declaring her own desires, Jane is still unable to shake her disdain for other people with impairments - but as the movie segues into the gigolo subplot, it starts to feel like the filmmakers running away from a nuanced and meaty story.
The frustrating thing about The Theory of Flight is not an unfamiliar one when it comes to movies about the relationship between a non- and disabled person.
Ultimately, The Theory of Flight is Richard's story, with Jane providing the catalyst for him to become a better person.
Instead of Jane's nerves with the gigolo, the key tension of the third act is Richard's ham-fisted attempt at a heist. Despite some effective crosscutting, Jane's meeting the gigolo - the key focus of the story - are minimised in favour of Richard's farcical antics.
The actors are a mixed bag - there are scenes and moments when Branagh and Bonham Carter feel like ordinary people wrestling familiar frustrations and obstacles - and then there will be a scene where Branagh clown about in a dressing gown. There is a touch of ham to Branagh, and the film is not always able to shave it off him.
Bonham Carter adds a welcome note of deadpan resignation as Jane, but her casting ultimately feels like the cherry on top of the script's embrace of regressive cliches.
In the same year The Theory of Flight was released, Australian filmmaker Rolf De Heer collaborated with disabled writer-actress Heather Rose on the film Dance Me to My Song, which she starred in as a disabled woman with life goals and a sex drive. I would have reviewed that movie, but as of this moment I cannot find it streaming anywhere (watch this space, I guess).
On its own terms, The Theory of Flight is familiar fluff - its only idiosyncrasy is its association with Greengrass, and the juxtaposition with his other work. He neutralises and blunts some of the contrivances - the salt I mentioned earlier - but the problems with the film are more fundamental.
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