Amelia (2009)

Just perfect...

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Women are not much into histories and documentaries and guys aren't much into romances. It took me a good 30-40 minutes before I could get into the film. Hilary Swank portrays Amelia as a woman who wanted to prove herself in a man's world, perhaps more to herself than to make a statement. She always wanted to test her boundaries, both as a pilot and in her personal life. After her early successes she was a "booth girl" marketing products and being asked questions about what she wore.The film covers the highlights of her life and includes her affair with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) who perhaps makes a better leading man than Richard Gere. We do see some early foreboding as when Amelia crosses the Atlantic looking for Paris, lands in Ireland...now on her final trip around the world she has a navigator with a drinking problem and she needs to find a small island in the Pacific to refuel (something smaller than the European continent that she missed). Guess how that works out?The problem with this film is that they made it complex. It is a woman's story of achieving in a man's world. It is a love story. It is a romance. It is a history. But it wasn't an action film or a thriller.

Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank) is a Kansas girl who pines for the freedom of flying. The movie starts with Amelia trying to fly around the world with Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston) in 1937. The movie flashes back to her meeting with publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere) about being a passenger on a trans-Atlantic flight billed as the first woman to fly the trip. Putnam and Earhart would eventually marry, but she would stray with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor). Meanwhile, there are younger pilots like Elinor Smith (Mia Wasikowska) on the way.The smaller problem is those accents of Earhart and Putnam. Even if they are correct, they are very distracting. It sounds stilted, and sucks out all of the life in the movie.The bigger problem is that her story is done in a perfunctory boring way. It must have been a fascinating story about how she learned to fly, but none of that is in the movie. It opens up from Putnam onwards ignoring anything before then. When she first travels trans-Atlantic, there are a few nice jabs about the sexism of the times. It's a big part of the theme of the movie. I think director Mira Nair is just too subtle with the obstacles she faced. She may be the wrong director for this movie.There's no doubt that these are great actors doing their best. They spent the money to recreate the planes and the era. It has a professional look. Everybody is very capable, but the result is a wholly boring movie.

Amelia is a biographical film of the life of Amelia Earhart,who made history in 1932 by becoming the first woman ever to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Hilary Swank stars as Earhart, together with Richard Gere, Christopher Eccleston and Ewan McGregor. It was written by Ronald Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan, using research from sources such as East to the Dawn by Susan Butler and The Sound of Wings by Mary S. Lovell, and directed by by Mira Nair.On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator,Fred Noonan, are on the last leg of an around-the-world flight. Moving in vignettes from her early years when Earhart was captivated by the sight of an aircraft flying overhead on the Kansas prairie where she grew up, her life over the preceding decade gradually unfolds. As a young woman, she is recruited by publishing tycoon and eventual husband George Putnam to become the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean, albeit as a passenger. Taking command of the flight results in a success and she is thrust into the limelight as the most famous woman pilot of her time. Putnam helps Earhart write a book chronicling the flight, much like his earlier triumph with Charles Lindbergh's We, gradually falling in love with his charge, and they eventually marry, although she enacts a "cruel" pledge as her wedding contract.Embarrassed that her fame was not earned, Earhart commences to set myriad aviation records, and in 1932, recreates her earlier transatlantic flight, becoming the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic. The trip made the aviatrix a national celebrity.Her marriage was tested, however, as Earhart developed feelings for contemporary Gene Vidal, and the couple's marriage faced the ultimate tragedy years later, as Earhart's fierce independent spirit spurred her to attempt to fly around the world -- a venture that infamously shrouded her in mystery, as the pilot simply vanished after crashing into the Pacific Ocean. Amelia takes the compelling raw materials of its subject's life and does little with them, conventionally ticking off Earhart's accomplishments without exploring the soul of the woman.It also made the movie less interesting as it becomes predictable which made it less interesting.Too bad that the movie did not capitalize on exploring Earhart as a person especially when it had the talented Hillary Swank portraying the role. The narrative was also slow and it lacks energy and vitality which made it boring to the viewer and the characters less interesting and uninvolved. Too bad that this film was a missed opportunity for two reasons: becoming a great film and exploring the adversities that women had to face especially when taking on adventures and actions that were deemed exclusive for men during Earhart's lifetime.Added to that,there was completely lack of focus in the story-telling and direction of the film.

she was swallowed by the sky or by the sealike me she had a dream to flyoh Amelia!it was just a false alarm (Joni Mitchell)Hilary Swank was ideally cast as the daring pilot for she is par excellence the actress of the "adventures " movie which may take place in France (the countess De La Motte in a very so-so costume drama or in her native country ("Billion dollars baby"in which she is unforgettable)Amelia's feats as a pilot are well depicted ,although the two male leads are wasted (in Ewan McGregor 's case it's disastrous).And there is another side of her life which is passed over in silence:she was a feminist activist and she fought for the women's rights ;if the screenplay devoted one or two scenes to her commitment,I have missed them.Richard Gere ,in spite of a thankless part,proves he can age gracefully.dreams Amelia,dreams and falsealarms ....(JM)