A year or so ago, I was looking at a photograph of Amelia Earhart and thinking “If they ever make a movie about her, I bet they’ll cast Hilary Swank.” A couple weeks later, I heard that Mira Nair (of Salaam Bombay and Namesake fame) was directing Amelia, starring Hilary Swank. The news seemed pretty auspicious at the time–Nair had made some pretty fine films, and Swank had the looks and acting chops to pull it off. There could really have been a great film here. Earhart is an inherently interesting subject, a pioneer both for aviation and for the American woman. But the actual film, I’m sad to say, is a bit stale, only really taking off in its final minutes.

The screenplay, based upon the celebrated Wikipedia article, seems determined to lecture us about Amelia Earhart, great feminist icon, when it should have showed us Amelia Earhart, professional pilot. For my money, there are few characters more dull in film than mere Historical Figures–I much prefer to watch skilled professionals enjoying what they do. In Amelia, we don’t once witness Swank flying just for fun–this movie’s woman is only seen during the “important” flights, the ones that made history. The excitement comes in short, sometimes laughably artificial bursts–during an early scene, a plane’s hatch suddenly and inexplicably pops open in midair and Earhart and her co-pilots dramatically hurl themselves towards it as if they were fighting Klingons on the bridge of the Enterprise. The final scenes, depicting her final flight across the Pacific, offer some genuine suspense and mystery, but it’s a weak payoff, far too late.

Aircraft in the 1920’s and 1930’s were still fragile and glamourous conveyances, their pilots few and bold. There are precious few filmmakers who seem to understand the peculiar romance and thrill of the early days of aviation, like Steven Spielberg or Hayao Miyazaki. I’d love to see Miyazaki make a film about Earhart, but in a sense he’s already made several, from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind to Porco Rosso. He loves to populate his films with soaring aircraft and put smart female characters in their cockpits. I can only assume Nair prefers to travel by train. The axis around which she spins her film is Earhart’s relationships with two men–her husband, George Putnam (Richard Gere) and her dalliance with Gene Vidal (Ewan MacGregor). I may be a guy, but I like to think I’m a feminist, and frankly this movie had a patronizing air about it. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Biography/Drama

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 2/2/10

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