Rating: 4/10

Writers: Anna Hamilton Phelan, Ronald Bass
Director: Mira Nair
Cast: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston
Studio: Fox Searchlight

Based on two autobiographies (East to the Dawn and The Sound of Wings), AMELIA explores the life of famed female pilot, and icon of the women’s movement, Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank). From her obsession with planes even as a little girl through her many achievements as a flygirl to her mysterious disappearance as she attempted to boldly do what no man or woman had done before, Earhart was a true inspiration, trend setter and record-breaker. Not to mention heart-breaker.

Unfortunately, the film about Earhart does not live up to Earhart herself, her life, and its many achievements. It crashes and burns in the way that some biopics do, in that it tries to fit too much of the subject’s life in. In other words, there is no focus on the most important thing, that being Earhart and her aviation career and subsequent achievements. Instead, the script attempts to fit every aspect that feels important to her life, including her marriage to publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere) and affair with West Point professor and pilot Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor). An affair that, within the film, feels unnecessary and thrown in for what reason, I have no idea. As a result, McGregor’s talents feel unused, as he plays a character only there to be used by Earhart. As for Gere, I am not one to dislike the actor for any particular reason, as many people seem to. His portrayal of Earhart’s understanding and devoted beau is well-played and nothing really more.

When the film does focus on Earhart’s achievements, both in the air and on the ground, it leaves one uninterested in what should be inspirational. This is due to Nair’s choice to tell the film out of order, instead of a consistent build up and development of Earhart’s rise to the icon she became. Where this has worked in films of a biographic nature before, here it just becomes confusing. It’s even down right distracting at times, in that it keeps you guessing if this is that flight every time you see Earhart in a plane. Sure, I’m sure historians on the subject know what’s what, but as a director you should never rely on your audience to know the history of the history you’re trying to recount. Either that, or package your film with a 30-minute prologue, presented by the History/Biography/Discovery/WE channel. (Aspiring directors: Please note the sarcasm here.)

Thus, when we finally do reach the fateful flight that took Earhart’s life, it does not carry the emotional weight in which it should. By that time, the film has run out of gas, as it has caused the audience to play a guessing game the entire time. So, in the end, what we should care about, we do not.

The thing that does take off in the film is Swank’s portrayal of the famed female flier. Swank physically looks and emotionally acts as if she were born to play the role, bringing to the character a vibrancy and vigor that achieves exactly what every actor attempts to achieve when trying to recreate a real person – that being that you forget you are watching Hilary Swank and remember you are seeing Amelia Earhart up on that silver screen.

Unfortunately, Swank’s performance alone is not enough to get this film in the air, as it stays on the ground, held down by too much added weight of unnecessary sub plot lines that are all over the map. Simply put, AMELIA’s engine putters but never really kicks into Gere.