Goodby rebel lifestyle, free love and recreational hot sex, hello conventional midlife crisis.

It takes tremendous courage to expose one's life to the camera as Fox does here, and while she answers few of the universal (to women, anyway) questions she raises, at least she's asking them.

Over the six hours spent with Fox as she jets around the globe, a picture emerges, not only of a modern woman contemplating herself, but of Western society boasting of its freedom to a world struggling for mere survival.

I'd mark how effective Flying is by the fact that I'm under no obligation to watch the rest of the series, but I'm eager to do so.

There are times when Fox's nervy endeavor to combine art and life obliges one to give way to the other, but her efforts and reflections throughout are riveting.

Seinfeld on estrogen... if Seinfeld had dared to be about something...

Despite [director] Fox's excruciating level of self-involvement, she manages, more than once, to lay bare critical questions that are at once familiar and compelling.

What keeps the film interesting, though, is not Fox's "torn between two lovers" shtick, but her encounters with various other women.

In the end this very personal journey becomes a valuable universal document from which we can all learn about the way women live today.