I may have watched The Terminal a while after it first came out, but I remembered no details, so I took the opportunity o watch it on Netflix recently. Whether or not I watched it before, I may not remember the details very well now either. It is a quiet movie with a slow moving plot. It stands in direct counterpoint to Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, which was slow moving in a way, but it had as a backdrop the murder of millions of people and one man’s character growth towards a time when he would try to save some of those lives. It’s quiet tone is interrupted by spurts of emotional and physical violence. The Terminal does not offer such exclamation points to add to suspense and tension.
That is not to say The Terminal is boring, though some may find it so. It is a character study of a man in limbo, neither in the United States nor able to leave it. He has left his country to go to New York City, and there is a coup back home, and since the United States does not recognize the new government, he is stuck in a section of JFK airport. The story is very loosely based on the story of an Iranian man. He was apparently paid to use his story, but they ended up only using the concept behind it.
His situation reminded me of the short story I had to read back in junior high, The Man without a Country, written by Edward Everett Hale. It told the story of a fictional soldier who was charged with treason along with Aaron Burr, and who cursed the United States saying she wished he would never have to hear about the U.S. again. He was sentenced to live out his life on board various ships with nobody ever mentioning his country in his hearing again.
But back to the movie. The story is full of small moments showing **** adjusting to his limited new environment: trying to feed himself, helping a few others whether they want help or not, finding ways of amusing himself or keeping busy and, inevitably, slowing becoming involved with a flight attendant he sees often.
Most movies need a bad guy and, as if his situation wasn’t giving our hero enough headaches, the security head played by Stanley Tucci periodically plots to get our stranded traveler arrested so that huge will be relocated and therefore someone else’s problem. But I will let you discover all of the intricacies of the plot for yourself, as well as learn what is in the can of peanuts he carries around. In total The Terminal is a pleasant enough watch, but one perhaps you will want to watch while doing housework, or multitasking in some other way.