Amelia Crash Lands

"Amelia" is a film with dreams of soaring to the heights of Oscar Glory. But its clunky script sends it crashing back to earth.

Hillary Swank plays the plucky aviator like she's channeling Katherine Hepburn. That's fine if you're starring in the Katherine Hepburn story, but the affectations of her speech make her sound like she's seen one too many 1930's gangster movies.
Richard Gere is agreeable as her promoter, book publisher and later husband George Putnam. But he talks like he's in a 1930's movie too, not the 1930's. The two leads' affected speech paterns are all the more noticable because no one else in the film talks that way.

The film ignores Earhart's early life almost completely, and we first see her as she's about to embark on her fateful round the world flight. The major events of her adult life, such as her first transatlantic flight, are told in flashback. There's also a standard issue love triangle between Earhart, Putnam, and a charming flight teacher played by Ewan McGregor.

The film's visuals are striking. But just as it seems to take off, the script gets in the way. The love story is supposed to pull the heart strings, but it never generates any heat. And the filmmakers actually expect the audience to swallow it's pithy platitudes like "don't let anyone turn you around" as though they were deep philisophical nuggets of wisdom.

It's a shame such a strong spirited woman who dreamed of being totally free wound up encaged by a run of the mill biopic.

"Amelia:" D+