The Terminal: More than Fluff?

The following review originally was published on cinekklesia on June 1, 2005. As Paul Marchbanks, cinekklesia's coordinator, would say: this is "a spoiler-filled response" (i.e., don't read it if you still plan to watch the movie)!

I wanted to watch this movie largely because of the popularity of Paul Marchbank's review, which so far (as of May 31) has received four comments (over 25 percent of cinekklesia's feedback!). I have not read Paul's musings on this film, and I'm curious as to how much we'll differ.

Unfortunately, after looking forward to finding something pithy to say, Stephen Spielberg's The Terminal (2004) left me feeling vacuous (as Gertrude Stein once opined of Oakland, California: "There is no there there" [emphasis mine]).

Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, an Eastern European who arrives at New York's JFK Airport in the hopes of beginning an American holiday. Unfortunately, while he is flying to the United States, military forces in his homeland stage a coup, and his country dissolves into war. He cannot fly back because the old government is gone, and he is technically not a citizen of the new regime; however, he cannot enter US territory because the State Department does not recognize the legitimacy of the new leadership (and thus, won't process his passport).

Thus, Navorski is stuck in a political/bureaucratic limbo at the airport. The local head of immigration/customs enforcement, Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci), tells him that he can remain in the sprawling international lounge (essentially, a shopping mall) until matters clear up. However, the civil war is no overnight affair, and Navorski ends up staying in the airport for months.

During the course of The Terminal, we learn that Navorski is a survivor. He makes money by returning luggage carts (25 cents a cart); when Dixon takes that enterprise away from him, he subsists on crackers and condiments. He eventually (and inadvertently) lands a job with a construction crew rebuilding part of the airport.

Navorski also becomes a folk hero to the low-wage employees of JFK. While Dixon wants him to attempt an escape so that he can be arrested by the Port Authority (and thus, become "someone else's problem"), Navorski steadfastly refuses, choosing instead to follow the Standard Operating Procedure that Dixon represents. Ironically, by steadfastly adhering to the rules, Navorski becomes a thorn in Dixon's side, much to the delight of those who labor under the bureaucrat's panoptic gaze.

While The Terminal is not necessarily a bad movie, it has nothing that makes it aesthetically worthwhile. The themes are hackneyed: immigrant trying to accomplish something in "America," the little guy standing up to the "Man," and "meaningful" romance between people "searching for something" (Navorski falls in love with a flight attendant played by Catherine Zeta-Jones — a subplot so trite and inconsequential that it barely deserves mention).

In all fairness, I did enjoy Tucci's portrayal of a petty bureaucrat, who exists solely to further his career, and Spielberg does make a timely and important comment on an agency's stupid and dehumanizing attempts to prevent people from voluntarily associating with one another. However, these points are minor in relation to rest of the film's energy, which is spent on telling us...well, not much, actually.

It appears that ultimately, The Terminal is fluff, which is not surprising, given the director and lead actor's status as mainstream Hollywood heavyweights. However, is it good fluff? Unfortunately, no. Good fluff, while not intellectually or cinematically brilliant, doesn't leave one feeling vacuous when the credits start rolling. For example, Ocean's Eleven is nothing but fluff, yet at the end, I felt good about having witnessed a clever heist spiced with wisecracks (unfortunately, the sequel was not nearly as good). To go further down the food chain (or up, depending on your tastes), Godzilla 2000 further epitomizes fluff — fluff that builds community. Try watching it with some close friends and you'll see yourselves laughing in harmony at the travails of the Godzilla Protection Network. While good fluff usually doesn't edify, it does fills the audience with something (entertainment? good times?).

Thus, the main lesson from The Terminal is actually one pointed at Hollywood writers and directors. If you're going to make fluff, then make fluff...and have fun with it. Don't try to "salvage" your work with paeans to overworked themes and trite heroes. Fluff is its own reward!