Last year, Hollywood touted Oscar contender "Benjamin Button" as its return to old-school filmmaking. This year Tinseltown has "Amelia," Hilary Swank's sap-propelled bio-pic about Amelia Earhart, America's iconic aviatrix.
Earhart's remarkable life and trailblazing career of the 1920s and 1930s lacks nothing by way of big, box office allure.
Love, adultery, danger, adventure. This real-life story has it all, including Earhart's mysterious disappearance over the Pacific Ocean in 1937, a puzzle people are still trying to solve today.
Yet, like Earhart, who vanished into thin air trying to circumnavigate the globe, Swank cannot wing her way to success here no matter how high she aims.
Directed by Mira Nair ("The Namesake") and co-starring Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor, this glossy epic opens with Earhart happily airborne and at the helm of her Lockheed L-10 Electra
Her blood-shot navigator, Fred Noonan, (Christopher Eccleston) is in plane's rear, steering their way into the history books.
Flashbacks mix with Earhart's first, Hallmark card-sounding words. Together they paint a slick portrait of earlier times when Earhart's lofty flying dreams were earthbound by circumstance (i.e. no dough).
But, this freckled-faced flying ace from Atchison, Kansas soon bursts onto America's radar
Earhart becomes the first woman to cross the Atlantic, albeit as a passenger.
That big, show stopping event -- one even Madonna would envy -- is staged by publishing-magnate George Putnam (Richard Gere).
Suddenly, Earhart is Lady Lindy, stealing the spotlight from aviation star Charles Lindbergh.
America's new "it" girl also, quite conveniently, becomes Putnam's main squeeze.
Before Earhart can burn up that airport tarmac, the couple's business relationship blooms into what hipsters now call "friends with benefits."
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Despite its problems, "Amelia" should propel itself into Oscar contention next year, particularly for Swank as Best Actress. |
Earhart wants to fly. George wants to help her. Their inevitable, comfortable marriage serves them both well. Yet, even wedding vows can't clip Earhart's wings.
The fiercely-independent woman flies daring routes against Putnam's better judgment, and she betrays George in an affair with aviation pioneer Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor).
Even then, no wild, lust-in-your-gut passion ever rips into gear here.
Aviation saga never takes off
The music, which swells from start to finish like a starched hanky, pushes audiences just a little too much to think and feel on cue.
Swank's stilted elocution, particularly in her initial scenes with Gere, grates on our modern ears.
But, maybe that's part of the problem.
In a world where "in your face" images and sounds confront us daily, Swank's shy, deliberately-spoken Earhart fails to slam that "bigger-is-better" button that Hollywood has programmed into us in recent years.
She's not Megan Fox. She's not model Gisele Bundchen. But, give Swank a chance here.
The Oscar-winning actress eerily channels the visual essence of the Earhart. Leather jumpsuits. Aviator caps. All of that, plus Swank's signature, picket-fence smile, compel audiences to stick with this fly-girl.
Today, where even poor shepherds in far-flung corners have cellphones and internet access, it's hard to imagine people being overwhelmed by the sight of a plane landing in a field, let alone a woman flying it.
Earhart's world is no global village. Not by a long shot.
In those early days of America's aviation industry, flying anywhere, even down a ramp as Swank does in one scene, was fraught with danger.
Put into that context, "Amelia's" old-school cinematic delivery starts to make sense. Its most harrowing moments also begin to stand out.
In her last radio message to husband George, Swank's slow, steady, quiet work finally reveals a flesh-and-blood woman, not some superhero pitch person who sells clothes and cigarettes to America -- as Earhart did.
These qualities, coupled with the instrument failures that plague those tense last moments of Earhart's Pacific crossing, are breathless, honest and downright riveting.
We all know how this story ends. To her credit, Swank keeps us with her until this joy ride turns deadly.
Despite its problems, "Amelia" should propel itself into Oscar contention next year, particularly for Swank as Best Actress.
Yet, with all its high-flying ambitions "Amelia" is bitter proof that classic filmmaking of Hollywood's heyday is much harder to pull off than it looks.
We'll never know how Earhart would have rated Swank's performance or Nair's "Air America" ode to her enduring legend.
Aside from Swank's plucky efforts, I'm betting Earhart heads to her great, big hangar in the sky and looks for groundbreaking film fulfillment elsewhere.
Two and a half stars out of four
