In the movie
Flight, Denzel Washington plays
William “Whip” Whitaker, the captain of the fictional Southern Airlines. On the
job he is charming, confident and utterly in control. But we soon learn that
this persona is merely a mask hiding a proud, fractured, damaged psyche, and a
man who is suffering from alcohol abuse. Intoxicated, but in control (which
seems like a contradiction in terms – but, so is Whip’s life), is
the shape Captain Whitaker is in one rainy morning, when he pulls his jet up
high above the clouds on a routine 56-minute trip from Orlando to Atlanta. When
the plane he is flying experiences mechanical failures, Whitaker is forced to
crash-land in a South Georgia field, saving 96 of the 102 passengers on board.
At a
hearing, to investigate the crash, the lead NTSB investigator, reveals that the
cause of the plane's malfunction was a damaged jackscrew in the elevator
assembly, and commends Whip on his valor and ability to land the plane under
such conditions. Just when it appears that she will be letting Whip escape
culpability, she raises suspicion around two empty alcohol containers found in
the trash on the plane; which Whip knows were his. The investigator goes on to
point out that only the flight crew had access to the alcohol, and only two of
the flight crewmembers failed the toxicology testing following the crash (Captain
Whitaker and a deceased female stewardess). In an intense scene that follows, Whip,
tearfully, admits not only that he was flying intoxicated but also that he is
intoxicated at the hearing.
Thirteen
months later, an imprisoned Whip, serving a minimum five-year sentence, tells a
support group of fellow inmates that he’s glad to be sober and does not regret
doing the right thing. "That was it,” he says. “I was finished. I was
done. It was as if I had reached my lifelong limit of lies. I could not tell
one more lie." Despite incarceration, Whip concludes, "For the first
time in my life, I'm free."
But, what is
it that Whip feels “free” from? It’s not his alcoholism, for that is merely a
byproduct of an inner struggle (i.e. a gnawing emptiness inside that he hides
through appearing to have it all together). The freedom he speaks of is his
being able to stare intently into the mirror of self-criticism, and to accept
his fallen condition. He has to admit what’s really going on in his life to
experience freedom from it. Captain Whitaker’s path to healing and
transformation comes only when he painfully looks into the face of his wounds,
and gives language to them.
Flight insists
that we also look unblinkingly into that shadowy void of our darkest recesses.
It challenges us to stop hiding the truth of who we really are in a façade of
self pageantry, to come clean, to step out into the open, were lies, masks, and
other pretenses do not exist. When we finally come to a place where we’re able
to do that, we will experience what it really means to truly be free.
