Welcome to Harvey’s Hellhole, a monthly column devoted to spotlighting the movies that were poorly marketed, mishandled, reshaped, neglected or just straight-up destroyed by Harvey Weinstein during his reign as one of the most powerful studio chiefs in Hollywood. This month, we’ll be delving into that time Weinstein somehow got his former prized possession to star in an alleged “comedy.”
View for the Top is one of those movies I saw years ago and, every now and then, I sit back and wonder, “Wait a minute – did that shit really happen?”
One of the weirder experiences I’ve ever had watching a movie, Top is a $30 million Miramax production starring Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow and a star-filled, supporting cast. What is the movie about, exactly? Why, it’s about flight attendants. Yeah, you heard me.
Apparently, Harvey Weinstein thought it would be a good idea to greenlight a cute little comedy about a gal (played by Paltrow) who longs to get out of her white-trash surroundings and travel the world by becoming an air hostess. Maybe Paltrow agreed to star in this nonsense because she felt she owed Harvey one – after all, she won her Best Actress Oscar starring in the Miramax-distributed Shakespeare in Love. (It turns out she regrets it wholeheartedly, according to the opening lines in this 2006 Guardian interview.)
As small-town dreamer Donna Jensen, Paltrow’s platinum-blonde hair often upstages her from scene to scene, getting teased and coiffed to ridiculous heights. With a wardrobe that usually consists of crop tops, baby tees and hip-hugging capri pants, Donna starts her journey to the skies when she first gets dumped by her boyfriend/boss (Marc Blucas) at a Big Lots and gets motivated when she sees superstar attendant Sally Weston (Candice Bergen) plug her memoir in a TV interview.
She first joins a low-rent, budget airline, flying the friendly skies alongside seasoned flight attendant Sherry (a pointlessly bust-enhanced Kelly Preston— R.I.P.) and morally ambiguous trainee Christine (an even trashier Christina Applegate, practically reaching back to her Married … with Children days). Donna and Christine eventually try out for Royalty Airlines, where Weston became a star. They’re trained by the hard-nosed – and cock-eyed – Jack Whitney, played by Mike Myers, who spends every scene he’s in hamming it up, trying to get laughs in a movie that’s bereft of them.
Have I mentioned yet how bizarre this movie is? Directed with way too much sophistication by Bruno Barreto, Top, for some reason, makes the case that being a flight attendant is the noblest profession on the planet. Donna treats her dream of flying the world, serving first-class meals with champagne, with almost absurd earnestness. As ridiculous as it appears (the barrage of tacky, flight-attendant wardrobe that most of the cast wears certainly doesn’t help), Barreto and screenwriter Eric Wald (whose only other writing credit is creating that Freeform mermaid show Siren) injects the narrative with straight-faced sincerity that has to be seen to be believed.
It’s also one of those movies that make you feel like a loser if you don’t have someone to share your life with. Donna eventually finds love with a law student named Ted (Mark Ruffalo, in the first of his many “supportive-boyfriend” roles), which means she has to choose between flying all over the globe or staying with his ass in Cleveland – because, in this movie, women can’t have it all. (Along with being future Avengers castmates, Paltrow and Ruffalo also appeared in the dismal sex-addict dramedy Thanks for Sharing. I wonder if, during those movie shoots, they ever reminisced about working on this film, or they just agreed never to bring it up again.)
Can I stress one more time that View from the Top is nuts? Seriously, how does a movie like this get off the ground? According to IMDb, Wald wrote his script during a stint in UCLA’s MFA Screenwriting Program. The script, which was described as “Election set in a world of airline stewardesses,” was then purchased by Miramax for $450,000 guaranteed against $600,000, according to this 1999 article. The purchase reportedly came about from a deal Miramax made with Brillstein-Grey Entertainment’s film company, where the studio had a first-look agreement for all theatrical projects produced by the production company.
This explains why the late, Hollywood uber-mogul Brad Grey is listed as one of the producers. This also explains why there are so many damn stars in this otherwise mediocre production; Grey must’ve called in a lot of favors to pepper the film with familiar faces. Future Miramax honcho Rob Lowe shows up out of nowhere to play a wise airline pilot who gives our heroine words of encouragement – and never shows up in the movie again. There are also weird cameos from, of all people, Chad Everett and George Kennedy. (Was Kennedy cast because he appeared in all those Airport movies from the ‘70s?) Regis Philbin and Robert Stack also had cameos, but they were cut out.
The film was shelved from its original Christmas 2001 release date, only to be released in March of 2003, where it was greeted with negative reviews (though Roger Ebert gave it a diplomatic three stars) and a $19.5 million take at the box office. It wasn’t pushed back because the movie was terrible – which it is – but because Miramax thought a movie about air travel, however respectable it is, wouldn’t have fared well after 9/11. Considering how ultra-serious the movie treats the whole concept of air travel (there isn’t a Mile High Club joke or anything!), I don’t see how this film could’ve offended anyone.
However, the movie is quite offensive to the senses, from the wall-to-wall, top-40 soundtrack (Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” — performed by a Journey tribute band, mind you — appears often in the movie; thank God The Sopranos finale came along a few years later to knock the song’s association with Top from my memory) to throwing in Scandal’s Joshua Malina as a stereotypically flaming, gay attendant and a pre-Fox News correspondent Stacey Dash as a token Black attendant who gets to do even less. For God’s sake, it even ends with Paltrow and Applegate leading the cast in a version of Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family,” titled “We Are Royalty.” Gotdamn, this movie is embarrassing.
One good thing did come out of this. Richard Ayoade, the British actor (The IT Crowd) and filmmaker (Submarine), actually wrote a book — I shit you not — about this film. Titled Ayoade on Top, this 2019 book is one big put-on, as Ayoade mocks the movie by assuming the role of a pedantic celluloid snob who recognizes the film’s brilliance. “Top is a rare, breathless work of honesty, directness and integrity,” Ayoade writes, “a film that celebrates capitalism in all its victimless glory, and one I can imagine Donald Trump himself half watching on his private jet’s gold-plated flat screen, while his other puffy eye scans the cabin for fresh young prey.”
When I saw Top years ago, I thought for sure this was going to be one of those cult classics that audiences would catch at midnight-movie screenings and endlessly goof on. It turns out that View from the Top – from the cast to the crew to the general public – would rather just act like it never happened. Thank God a smartass like Ayoade is around to never let them forget. 
“View from the Top” is available to rent or buy.
