Movie with Abe: Amelia

Amelia
Directed by Mira Nair
Released October 23, 2009

Telling the story of Amelia Earhart involves delving heavily into her life story and creating a compelling lead character in this well-known early aviatrix. The mesmerizing nature of flying in the 1920s and 1930s is another important component, something that movies like “Catch Me If You Can” have been able to do, to make flying seem incomparably cool and exciting when, in today’s society, hundreds of thousands of people fly all around the world every day. “Amelia” does both of these things very well, but there’s something missing that doesn’t quite allow the movie to get all the way off the ground.

Actress Hilary Swank has the unique ability to inspire devotees, especially if they’re members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, who will bestow her with accolades for her sporadic performances, and those who detest the very sight of her and protest any awarding of any of her screen appearances. Many have described her penchant for playing sexually ambiguous roles (her two Oscar wins were for playing a transgender male in “Boys Don’t Cry” and a tomboy female boxer in “Million Dollar Baby”) as perfectly suited for taking on the role of Amelia Earhart.

Her performance, however divisive, certainly is iconic, and even if Amelia isn’t meant to be well-liked, it’s an impressive immersion into a legendary personality. Her manner of speaking will annoy most, though it’s luckily not quite as unfortunate as Denzel Washington in “The Great Debaters,” and doesn’t come close to the miserable, film-ruining accents of Kirsten Dunst in “Elizabethtown” and Nicolas Cage in “Con Air.” The reason her deliberate pronunciation and Midwestern twang sticks out is that she’s the only one in the movie who clearly recognizes that she’s in a period piece, especially when accompanied by two actors who generally deliver essentially the same performance, regardless of setting. Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor contribute little, besides the smoldering looks they throw at Amelia, though their presence aids to shape the strong, confident woman-ahead-of-her-time Amelia becomes.

What’s missing in “Amelia” isn’t any one concrete element, but there’s no definitive point at which the film truly soars. The visual perception of flying is well-done and relatively astonishing, and when the film is in the air, it takes off and performs decently. Its most significant accomplishment is the lack of some falsified ending, and keeping the mystery of Amelia’s fate unsolved is a fitting tribute to her legacy. It’s hardly a bad film, and by no means deserves the unabashedly harsh and nearly universally negative reviews it’s received. It’s simply not a great film, but an intriguing historical portrait. It’s mildly unsatisfying and unfulfilling, but it certainly doesn’t deserve the beating it’s taking.

B-

Read about the making of “Amelia.”