Amelia

I saw Amelia in a movie theater because I'm interested in aviation and wanted to see the Lockheed Electra in flight on a big screen.

This is not a terrible movie but it does suffer greatly from being a biopic and the producers' attempt to fit in as much of Amelia Earhart's life before she disappeared in 1937. I think they could have done a better job of portraying her and the era if they had concentrated more on her last flight. As it is, we are introduced to quite a few characters who never appear again and others, like Gene Vidal, who don't contribute much to the movie other than to make Earhart's husband jealous. Fred Noonan's portrayal is unflattering and with no historical reason.

Hillary Swank is plucky as the title character and she does a fine job of capturing Earhart's shyness before the camera but studied mannerisms are a poor substitute for acting. Richard Gere does well as G.P. Putnam. As Gere grows older he shows more range of emotion in his portrayals and I feel he adds quite a bit to the movie though his role is limited to second [and maybe third] banana to Swank. Ewan McGregor adds a bit of dash as Gene Vidal and a bit too much screen time is occupied by Vidal's young son, Gore. I liked Christopher Eccleston's Fred Noonan because the actor chose to portray Earhart's navigator as a gruff, but competent aviator - as befits Noonan's stature as one of the pioneers of aerial navigation. However, as I mentioned, the story chose to also depict certain characteristics of Noonan in the short time running up to the Electra's disappearence in a manner with no historical or factual proof. I suppose this is what happens when one lacks family or fan clubs 70+ years after one's disappearance and death.

All in all, despite any quibbles I may have, I feel that Amelia is worthy of viewing. The cinematography is excellent, the period costumes are gorgeous, and the story is inspiring. Those interested in following the continuing saga of the search for Earhart and Noonan's Lockheed Electra will be interested in The Institute for Aviation History [...].

"Amelia" is a perfectly adequate biopic, although I was hoping for more. Part of the problem is that it adheres to the conventions of the average historical drama, with moments of sweeping music, visually stunning landscapes, and voiceover narrations so perfectly placed that you can't help but feel a little manipulated. They're all provided by the title character, aviation pioneer Amelia Earheart (Hilary Swank), who disappeared in July of 1937 over the Pacific as she attempted to circumnavigate the globe; her words give us no more or less than poetic musings about the freedom of flying, the beauty of the sky, and the joy of living a dream. These bits of dialogue are not badly written, but honestly, is there nothing left to say that's original? For a film about a fascinating woman who lived a very fascinating life, I was surprised at just how generic it all seemed.

But let's not sell this movie short. Swank is perfectly cast, not only because her physical appearance is stunningly similar to Earhart's, but also because she gives yet another wonderful performance. We see a brave, determined, and sometimes stubborn woman who wanted to pave the way for other female pilots. Granted, we pretty much already knew this; numerous written accounts, some written by Earhart, cemented our perceptions of her a long time ago. Still, it's always a pleasure to see an actor taking someone else's qualities, mimicking them, and making the audience believe them. Swank has that kind of power, as she already demonstrated in films like "Boys Don't Cry" and "Million Dollar Baby." We see her as Earhart and invest in every smile, every laugh, and every line of dialogue.

The plot continuously shifts back and forth between her final flight and the events leading up to it, starting in 1928 with the introduction of George P. Putnam (Richard Gere). Putnam, a book publicist, was key in coordinating Earhart's flight across the Atlantic, which came at the heels of a similar flight taken by Charles Lindbergh a year earlier. While she was essentially a passenger, leaving the piloting to Wilmer Stultz (Joe Anderson) and Louis Gordon (Aaron Abrams), the flight was nonetheless an historic event, and even led to a ticker tape parade upon their return to New York City.

In fact, it wasn't until 1932 that Earhart finally flew solo across the Atlantic, starting in Harbour Grace, Newfoundland and ending in Culmore, Northern Ireland. By then, she was actively involved in competitive flying, and we're shown the Santa-Monica-to-Cleveland Women's Air Derby of 1929, which involved a young, eager aviatrix named Elinor Smith (Mia Wasikowska). Earhart was also already a celebrity at that point, gaining fame through a series of lecturing tours and product endorsements. She promoted everything from luggage to women's sportswear to chewing gum to Lucky Strike cigarettes, which was odd since she was a nonsmoker. While not exactly thrilled with the idea of being an advertising mascot, the money she earned did help finance future flying excursions.

In the midst of her professional career, she found herself romantically torn between Putnam and Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor), the pioneer of the commercial aviation industry (he was also the father of Gore Vidal, seen as a child and much adored by Earhart). He's indeed dashing and a charmer, unlike Putnam, who seems awfully stiff and businesslike. He and Earhart, however, have already gotten married. Granted, he was much more willing to be married than she was; historically, it's said that Putnam had to propose six times before Earhart finally agreed to marry him in 1931. Even then, her views remained liberal; in a written statement addressed to him, she said, "I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me, nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly."

Her 1937 world flight with aviator Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston) and their eventual disappearance are handled appropriately. The final communications between Earhart and the crew of the USGC ship "Itasca" are effectively tense, made better by the fact that the dialogue is virtually identical to the actual radio transmissions. What exactly did become of her and Noonan? Two prevailing theories are equally plausible: Either Earhart's Electra ran out of fuel and sank after crashing into the South Pacific, or they landed on Gardner Island (now called Nikumaroro) and eventually died of dehydration/starvation. There is evidence to support the second theory, including the discovery of a skeleton and a sextant box during a 1940 colonial expedition. It's circumstantial at best, but it's engrossing just the same.

If only the rest of the film were as effective. Much of "Amelia" is greatly romanticized, pretty much to the point where it seems condescending. Do we really need to hear lyrical odes to the sky, the ocean, and the adventure that is life? You expect this kind of treatment in melodramas like "Gone with the Wind," which naturally give license to epic production values and grandiose performances. Here, it feels like padding, a way to avoid delving deeper into character. Amelia Earhart went through history as an icon of perseverance and strength, and the movie treats her the same way. Unfortunately, this came at the expense of more personal touches, like the very life experiences that molded Earhart into the image we know today. Were it not for Swank's performance and the beautiful imagery, "Amelia" probably would have fallen from the weight of its cargo.

Amelia is a pretty standard issue bio-pic. The story is told as Amelia makes the last journey with Fred Noonan to find Howland Island. Amelia Earhart was a pioneer of aviation when flying was still dangerous, when airplanes crumpled like kites, and only to be undertaken by adventurous men. Although, for a while women's aviation was competitive with men's aviation, since engines and machines even up the playing field.

The story is pretty much about the adult Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank), although we're shown a young Amelia become enthralled with flying upon seeing her first barnstormer. Earhart's accomplishments are pretty much hit on in this film. The first woman to fly across the Atlantic, as a passenger, winning a cross country air race, her meeting with and falling in love with G.P. Putnam (Richard Gere) who made her a celebrity. The film makes it clear Earhart was uncomfortable with that celebrity endorsing a cigarette brand when she didn't smoke, luggage, a clothes line, a waffle iron, all that was missing was a perfume. It's clear that Earhart was not only a pioneer in the air but in the area of celebrity endorsements, and that status chaffed at her. In her eyes, her accomplishments were diminished by having to be only a passenger on that first trans-Atlantic flight. Putnam made a her feel like a "white horse jumping through hoops" but rationalized that it was necessary to fund her wanderlust of the skies.

Also detailed is her setting up with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) the first airline shuttle within the United States, again, for this business venture Earhart allows herself to be used as a figurehead to attract business for Vidal's airline. Earhart also meets Vidal's son the future writer Gore Vidal, who even at a young age it seems was proposing alternative lifestyles.

Earhart wanted to erase all doubts about skills as an aviator (aviatrix in the parlance of the day), that she was more ambition than accomplishment, and undertakes to circumnavigate the globe, which no man had done. Did Earhart undertake this expedition because she was insecure about the circumstances of previous accomplishements?

The acting by all the principals is what you would expect of actors of this caliber, there's nothing flashy here, but then the script doesn't really call for it until the end with Earhart and Putnam promising to see each other soon.

Of course we all know the outcome of that last flight and the speculation and mystery it's generated since, but this movie doesn't rise up to the level of the mystery or its stars. 3.5 stars

I have always admired Amelia Earhart. A woman of her time who was able to meet her dreams. She opened a world for women. She became a celebrity and set records with her flying machines. She flew across the Atlantic, behind the man who flew the plane, since she was not allowed to fly the plane at that time. But,soon, off she went. She flew for the fun of it!

Hilary Swank plays Amelia and she does the role justice. Richard Gere plays her husband, but there is no chemistry. There is no feeling of a couple. Something is missing. It appears that they had an open marriage from a letter that Amelia wrote to her husband. Ewan McGregor, plays Gene Vidal, an aviation player and, as his son, Gore Vidal, has reported, Amelia and Gene had an affair. A short one it might appear, because there is a moment and then Amelia is next seen with her husband. The photography is glorious in this film, we soar into the heights of the world and the clouds. The movie score is full of the sounds of visions of a plane soaring into the sky, and this might very well be one of the best parts of the film. The individual relationships are just that, relationships with not much heart. Hilary Swank is beautiful and her leather jacket fits her well. The story is well known and we know the outcome. What we don't know and didn't find out in this film is about the person. Just who was Amelia Earhart? We may never know.

This film was a disappointment for me. It has been built up to be academy award material. Something happened on the way to making this film, and it never hits the mark.

Recommended for the scenery and the story. prisrob 10-24-09

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Okay so I didn't know what to expect with the movie "Amelia." Was it a love story, a historical story, a drama? It was a little of all of them and more. It was a powerful movie with the theme of following your dreams. Now I didn't really know anything about Amelia Earhart, other than she was the first female flyer. The movie shows her as a child when she first realized she wanted to fly and then her as a passenger and then pilot. I did read about her, since my curiosity was peaked, and there was of course more to Amelia than the movie shows, but it does give a nice account of her life in the air!

I even got teared up at the end when she disappeared, even though I knew she didn't make her final flight. The love between her and George Putnam was so real and genuine that I felt bad for her, but appreciated his support for her passions. For knowing nothing really about Amelia, the movie worked for me. I do wish more of her life before planes was shown and maybe more of her life and romance with and without George was shown, but again with Hilary Swank and Richard Gere as main characters how can you go wrong!

I received this DVD to review, but it is 100% my opinion.

Amelia Earhart was a woman before her time in many ways. This movie gives insite into her fierce independance and determiniation to achieve her goals. It is a snapshot into the past with antique aircraft, old cars, and powerful newspaper moguls. I enjoyed it very much.

On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this 2009 biopic of legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart. Stephanie Carroll's production design, Stuart Dryburgh's cinematography and Gabriel Yared's (The Lives of Others) musical score are all appropriately evocative in recreating the vintage feeling of pioneering hope that Earhart represented during the Great Depression. However, there is a serious problem with the execution of this movie because dramatically, it feels strangely inert and worse, rather inconsequential. Part of the problem is our familiarity with Earhart's own rule-breaking story and her mysterious death over the Pacific. The challenge of making something fresh and inventive out of her mythic life proves too much for director Mira Nair (The Namesake) and screenwriters Ron Bass (Rain Man) and Anna Hamilton Phelan (Girl, Interrupted), who base their script on separate biographies by Susan Butler and Mary S. Lovell. In combination, they respond with a predictable pile of clichés about heroism, infidelity, proto-feminism, and the mantra of daring to dream.

With Earhart's doomed last flight in 1937 providing the narrative frame, the story skims the basic facts of her life with the main emphasis placed on her last decade beginning with her first transatlantic flight in 1928. This flashback technique necessitates the constant superimposition of titles detailing locales and years since there is little else that would give us a clue where we are in the tired soap opera being told. In episodic form, Earhart's ambition is shown with little personal drive onscreen, and her allegedly adulterous affair with Gene Vidal, an aeronautics engineer for the FDR administration, comes across more clinical than passionate. Also given short shrift is her complicated marriage to publishing tycoon George Putnam, whose previous success in chronicling Charles Lindbergh's life story drove him to make Earhart a merchandising bonanza. Beyond that, we simply see Earhart breaking all distance records for flying, and the story eventually catches up with her final flight.

Even this climactic episode, played out in so many previous incarnations, lacks the propulsive conviction to save the movie from itself. See Yves Simoneau's 1994 Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight (with Diane Keaton as Earhart) for a much more affecting recreation. Looking and even sounding a bit like a toothsome, mid-1930's reincarnation of Katharine Hepburn, Hilary Swank would seem to be the ideal embodiment of Earhart given her androgynous look and determined personality. However, she is left stranded by a script that gives her little to work with beyond providing a glib, glossy sheen to an oversimplified characterization. It's a shame given the actress's innate talent for bringing heart to misunderstood characters, but neither she nor Nair can come close to revealing Earhart's soul. As Vidal, Ewan McGregor makes little impression with his opaque character overshadowed by his precocious son who would grow up to become author Gore Vidal.

Richard Gere fares a little better as Putnam as he reverts back to the pained husband he played in Adrian Lyne's Unfaithful when the affair is exposed. Unfortunately, the love story between Putnam and Earhart never takes hold over the story being told. Of the supporting cast, only Christopher Eccleston makes an impression as navigator Fred Noonan, who is constantly battling his alcoholism on that fateful flight. Cherry Jones has a rather incongruous cameo as a dotty Eleanor Roosevelt to whom Earhart allows to take the controls of a nocturnal flight over Washington D.C. There is no commentary track accompanying the 2010 DVD, but there is, of course, the standard making-of feature, which runs 23 minutes. In addition, there are ten deleted scenes, none of which would have provided much value to the final product despite the intriguing casting of Virginia Madsen as Putnam's first wife. There are other shorter featurettes focused on Earhart herself, her plane, and the meticulous recreation of the period aircraft, plus seven vintage newsreels.

Having portrayed Alice Paul (Iron Jawed Angels) Hillary Swank returns to bring another liberated and independent woman's triumphs to life.

This time, she's chronicling the adventures of Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Not content with breaking records for herself, Amelia advocated for the advancement of all women to be recognized as competent and professional fliers.

This being a film, there are going to be theatrical liberties taken with the screenplay. But I was willing to put those aside for an enjoyable drama.

In spite of her newfound celebrity, Earhart wants other women to break through the social barriers of the day. So she joins The ninety-nines, a professional association for women pilots. And she refused to transport actress Mary Pickford when the Benidix Trophy Race banned women from contest participation. Political principles were apparently much more important than the ensuing fame which the job would have brought.

Richard Gere also delivers a good performance as her husband. Their open marriage was based on equality and his comfort with being the spouse of the 'celebrity'. But this story is rightfully about Amelia--in a world not quite ready for her or her accomplishments.

Story about one of the most magnificent women in our history.
Even Hollywood could not portray her in a bad light. A wonderful love story that allowed Amelia to reach for her dreams.

Hi, all you movie lovers out there!

I saw this great movie at New York City's Kipsa Bay Theatre and was enchanted by it! The movie was real, captured the look and feel of the 30's, and had plenty of romance and excitement in early flying to keep you interested and glued to the big screen. Hillary Swank's acting was fine and authentic as Amelia Earhardt and Richard Gere portrayed Amelia's supportive husband wonderfully. The photography and colors of the movie were terrific! The ending was very moving as Amelia realizes she will not survive her last flight as her plane, hopelessly lost, drifts over the great ocean, yet she struggles to stay brave and strong despite her emotions. What more would you want? This movie is a good flick and a must see!