website tracking
Search The Big Picture

« Movie Review - 'Astro Boy' | Main | Lizard Watch: Dylan Baker May Be Back for 'Spidey 4' »
Thursday
22Oct2009

Movie Review - 'Amelia'

DateThursday, October 22, 2009 at 11:26PM
Amelia

Starring Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, and Ewan McGregor
Directed by Mira Nair
Rated PG

ameliaposter.jpg Memorable only for the opportunity it has missed, Amelia manages to tell us everything about Amelia Earhart except what we might want to know. A great film can take the unvarnished details of an ordinary life and make them fascinating, so how can a movie about a woman so intersting and influential be so damn boring?

The film never goes deeper than the things you understand before you buy your ticket: It's the story of Amelia Earhart, who died trying to become the first person to fly around the world. Hilary Swank looks a lot like the character she's portraying.

The shame is that Swank is twice an Oscar winner, and was fantastic on both occasions (Boys Don't Cry, Million Dollar Baby). Almost without exception, though, Swank has been only passable or worse in her other films. How does that happen? You would expect a good deal more out her as Earhart; Amelia was one of the most important people of the 20th century, and Swank not only stars in this biography, but executive produced it as well.

But the film never, not once, concerns itself with why anyone, much less a girl in a boy's world, would commit herself so totally to such a dangerous pursuit, fully aware of the pitfalls. What made Amelia get in a cockpit the first time isn't terribly consequential, but what made her continue reaching for the clouds is. We never get that here.

Indeed, there is precious little motivation for anything. She marries her publicist, George Putnam (Richard Gere), though why they fall in love merits no explanation. Apparently, if you spend enough time around anyone of the opposite sex, no matter how fundamentally different they are, you'll fall in love. The same goes for Earhart's affair with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor), a society man with a shared love of flying. So, theoretically, if two people have the same interest, they're destined for a relationship, too.

It's the moments like these that director Mira Nair (The Namesake) simply expects us to accept with no underlying reason that put Amelia in such dangerous territory. If you're not going to watch a movie about why one of the greats was one of the greats, the storyline you are pursuing instead better be stupendous. All we see, though, is an aviatrix trapped in a pedestrian soap opera subplot.

The costumes and production design are no better than you'd see in any other film set in the 1920s and 30s, and the cinematography doesn't enhance the era, either. The incorporation of newsreel footage is clumsy. The musical score by Gabriel Yared tries only to not get in the way.

As for Amelia herself, Hilary Swank is handcuffed by some adherence to a voice impression that this film simply doesn't need. Bad accents are more revealing than no accent at all, and even though Earhart was a real person, the effort to mimic her inflections and speech patterns is unsuccessful and probably unnecessary. There are also a few too many references to Earhart's beauty to take seriously, and you get that a lot when the star is an executive producer. Need we remind you that Amelia Earhart was the first woman to successfully embark on a transatlantic flight? Please stop talking about her freckles.

There are today still plenty of theories thrown around about Earhart's disappearance over the South Pacific in July 1937. Some say she and navigator Fred Noonan careened into the deep blue sea, others speculate that she crashed or landed on what was then called Gardner Island, perishing there. And now we can add one more question to the puzzle: How in the world did professional, competent filmmakers manage to screw up such a compelling story?

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | Comment1 Comment |

Reader Comments (1)

one of the joys i had as a child was a series of autobiographies/biographies in our local library. and, the one i remember the most was the biography of amelia.

i had looked forward to this film... great cast, good chance to do so much with a figure who still haunts us....


now, i won't go.

meh.

Sunday, October 25, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterquin browne

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>