"“Given the modest budget, this remains a more than worthy effort from a first-time filmmaker...”"

Flying Blind marks the debut feature film for Polish director Katarzyna Klimkiewicz, following on from her award winning short Hanoi-Warszawa. Although certainly offering a provocative and intriguing romantic drama, you can't help but feel that perhaps Klimkiewicz hasn't made the transition from short to feature length quite so naturally, as a film that feels padded out at times and doesn't quite warrant it's 90 minute running time.

Frankie (Helen McCrory) works in the aerospace industry, successful and determined, the forty-something also lectures at a local University, and it is there where she meets French/Algerian student Kahil (Najib Oudghiri). The pair hit it off immediately, entering in to an intense and sensual relationship – however with post-9/11 paranoia still rife in the Western world, pressure from her father (Kenneth Cranham) and her work colleagues, push Frankie into believing that all is not quite as it seems with young Kahil. When she turns up to work one day to discover that MI5 are treating the student as a person of interest, Frankie has to decide whether to follow her heart, or surrender to the doubts that are creeping in.

Klimkiewicz has created an intelligent and thought-provoking piece of cinema, playing with the audiences perceptions as we struggle to identify whether Kahil is to be trusted or not. Initially, our suspicions of Kahil are based solely on the paranoia of those surrounding Frankie and there is very little to actually cause us to feel on edge. However you feel tense nonetheless, making you question your own judgement, as you fall into the trap that the filmmaker has intelligently devised, in a film that focuses on prejudice and ignorance, similar in a sense to that of upcoming drama The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

The one consistent aspect that does remain, however, is the viewer's warm feelings towards our protagonist, as thanks to a superb performance from McCrory, Frankie is an endearing and sympathetic lead. However we could do with more back story to her, or at least to her relationship with Kahil. There is no build up to their romance, as they meet awkwardly one evening in the parking lot, and the next time we see them they're desperately in love, and it just feels rushed somewhat. Though perhaps that is the point; their romance is immensely impassioned and lustful,  as you never quite get a sense for any palpable affinity between the pair.

Although bearing an unremarkable and anticlimactic finale, Flying Blind is well made film, and particularly given the modest budget, this remains a more than worthy effort from a first-time filmmaker, as Klimkiewicz is certainly a director to keep an eye out for in the near future.