View from the Top

Donna Jensen, living in a Nevada trailer with her alcoholic mother and abusive stepfather, desperately wants to get away. After graduating high school, Donna struggles to earn a living working as a clerk in a Big Lots store.

After her boyfriend leaves her, Donna sees a TV interview with Sally Weston, a former flight attendant who wrote a memoir titled, My Life in the Sky. Donna becomes a flight attendant for Sierra Airline, a small, seedy California commuter airline. She works with senior attendant Sherry and Christine. During this time, she meets Ted. Donna eventually applies to Royalty Airlines, as do Sherry and Christine. While Christine and Donna are hired, Sherry is not, and she remains with Sierra.

Donna studies hard, and, after meeting Sally Weston, is determined to be assigned to the top route, "Paris, First Class, International". After training, Donna is shocked and disappointed to be assigned to a commuter route in Cleveland while Christine, who struggled during the training, inexplicably is assigned the high-priority New York City route.

Although unhappy in Cleveland, Donna begins a relationship with Ted. A few months later, Donna runs into Christine. Donna is shocked that Christine has stolen Royalty Air items in her handbag. Even the smallest theft could result in termination. Donna suspects some error occurred in her route assignment. With Weston's help, Donna discovers that Christine switched their test I.D. numbers during their final exam.

Weston has airline security spy on Christine. Caught stealing, she is fired. Donna re-takes the exam, achieving a perfect score. She is assigned to a Paris, First Class, International route, though it means ending her relationship with Ted.

Donna soon realizes that she is lonely and unhappy and she misses Ted. With Weston's encouragement, she returns to Cleveland and she and Ted reconcile. The film ends with Donna wishing her passengers well as they land in Cleveland, though she is now a pilot.

Bonus tracks

View from the Top opened on March 21, 2003 (it was originally scheduled for Christmas 2001, but in light of the September 11 attacks and due to the fact that the story revolves around a flight attendant on numerous planes, the release was pushed back) and grossed $7,009,513 in its opening weekend, ranking number four behind Bringing Down the House, Dreamcatcher, and Agent Cody Banks.[2] The film would eventually gross $15,614,000 domestically and $3,912,014 internationally, totaling $19,526,014 worldwide, below the production budget of $30 million.[3]

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes the film has a rating of 14% based on reviews from 123 critics, with the site's consensus "Uneven in tone and badly edited, View From the Top wastes the talents of its cast and condescends to its characters."[4] Paltrow herself later disparaged the film, calling it "the worst movie ever".[5]

British comedian Richard Ayoade wrote the book Ayoade on Top, an in-depth comic analysis of the film, in 2019.[6][7]

"Ayoade argues for the canonisation of this brutal masterpiece, a film that celebrates capitalism in all its victimless glory; one we might 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."[8]

• Official website
• View from the Top at IMDb
• View from the Top at Box Office Mojo
• View from the Top at Rotten Tomatoes
• View from the Top at Metacritic
• Movie stills