Throughout AMELIA, I kept thinking of a lot of other very good biopics like MILK and WALK THE LINE. Sadly for Mira Nair's film, I was thinking how they portrayed similar plot elements so much better. AMELIA doesn't ride high on the overcoming odds elements that Harvey Milk's film story does, nor does it have nearly as a captivating love story as Johnny Cash and June Carter. But it tries to.
Hilary Swank gives another fine performance as Amelia Earhart. Right at the start, we are thrust into her big first flight as a passenger over the Atlantic. The stunt flight was promoted by top PR man George Putnam (Richard Gere, CHICAGO), who quickly becomes Amelia's lover and then husband. But as the many speeches Swank gives on the subject Amelia needs to be free and that drives her to a love affair with aeronautics pro Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor, MISS POTTER).
The film talks a great deal about Amelia's accomplishments as a female flyer, but it doesn't make us feel the true height that she had to climb. We get no sense of how tough it was for a young girl to learn to fly in her age. She talks about being just a poor girl from Kansas, but we never see it. The aviator has problems with drinking because of bad memories from her past, but we never see that past. Without any lead up, the first harrowing flight has no emotional context. What did Amelia have to accomplish to even get to that point?
Then with its love triangle it is either rushing through things or dwelling on cliché romantic moments. Putnam's move from PR man to lover to husband happens in big leaps where the audience is left looking for the whys. The film alludes to the reasons why Amelia would leave her husband, who became preoccupied with her press, which she hated, for a fellow flyer, but it never connects it on an emotional level. Once again the film works in plot points and clichés instead of lead ups and pay offs.
Swank does a good job of capturing Earhart's mannered speech and awkwardness in front of the public. While the material lets her down, she also makes us believe in the flyer's determination. Yet, the film only gives lip service to her recklessness. Gere and McGregor are given limited characters. Gere's Putnam is either a huckster, a jealous lover or a loving husband in the broadest sense of those definitions. McGregor's Vidal is even less complex.
The film follows three big flights in Earhart's career her first Atlantic cross where she was a passenger, her solo Atlantic cross and her final round-the-world attempt. Surprisingly Nair (THE NAMESAKE) spends more time on the first shame publicity flight and her tragic last flight than the successful one. The first flight tries to build tension for a character we barely even know yet, while the final flight tries to build tension for an ending we already know and a character we still barely know outside of platitudes and sentimentality.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
