Amelia Biopic Just Barely Stays In Flight

I am without a doubt, a self-confessed movie buff.  And the fact that I am writing movie reviews pretty much sends that fact screaming out even before you started reading. But I do have other passions in this world and one of them is history. I love to read, especially historical biographies and when that subject matter also makes it to the big screen I become absolutely giddy. I haven’t yet read a bio of the brave aviatrix Amelia Earhart, but when I heard that Mira Nair (director of films like “Monsoon Wedding”) was steering the project with Hilary Swank in the pilot seat, I immediately got excited.

“Amelia” begins with a glimpse of her mysterious final flight as we learn that she and her navigator, Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston), have less fuel than expected due to headwinds and may have trouble reaching their already hard to find destination. It is an ominous start but things lighten up when we fly back to her childhood and early career goal of being the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Because of sexist views and doubt she is only allowed to be a passenger on that first voyage, but determination sees her through to completing that goal of piloting herself later in the film in addition to many other accomplishments.

An equal amount of screen time is devoted to her relationship with husband, George Putnam, played by Richard Gere in a role not all that dissimilar from the one he played in “Chicago.” Putnam acted as her manager and some of the best material in the film actually revolves around her celebrity status and the jumping through hoops that she had to perform to bring in enough money to keep flying. If the montage of the endorsements that she signed her name to doesn’t bring a smile to your face, I don’t know what will.

Those seeking a little personal drama will be happy to know that Amelia isn’t the ideal little wife and has a bit of a naughty streak with Ewan McGregor as the suave Gene Vidal (father of that wily writer, Gore Vidal). To be fair to her, she makes it perfectly clear to Putnam early in their romance that she has no intention of staying faithful to him so this affair certainly doesn’t hit him with shock but he is heartbroken just the same.

As you can probably tell from the description thus far, Nair attempts to squeeze a lot into the film’s two-hour running length and from that perspective it falls prey to the trap that many biopics fall into of merely becoming a list of accomplishments by the subject rather than a complete story with a beginning, a middle and an end. There is very little to tie everything going on here together and for that reason the relationship drama hardly resonates with anything else going on in the film. Instead the film must rely on individual and rather episodic scenes to hold our interest. Some of these succeed, some don’t.

The acting is a little bit all over the place. As the film began everyone was speaking like either Katherine Hepburn or an over the top radio announcer, which was distracting and phony. Luckily, this gets dialed down a bit as the film goes on and Swank has some good moments but I don’t think she will succeed in attaining that third Oscar, which she probably had her eye on when she started this project.

Where the film succeeds most is with the lush cinematography by Stuart Dryburgh and some truly thrilling scenes of danger in the air. And despite the fact that we all know how it ends, the final scenes of her flight across the world are well-staged by Nair to give the maximum amount of tension and a real glimmer of hope that maybe this time she’ll make it. Obviously she doesn’t but it never hurts to hope.

Overall this is a very hit or miss film. Fans of history and aviation will likely find something to latch onto and enjoy, but if you’re looking for high drama and revolutionary cinema, you should look elsewhere because “Amelia” is strictly by the numbers.

Grade: B-