Movie review: Amelia

Despite a rich story, Amelia doesn't please

2.5 stars

For someone whose life was so intriguing and so popular, biopic Amelia's rendition of Amelia Earhart, beloved woman of the skies, falls flat on its face.

Although Hilary Swank is a picture-perfect image of Amelia Earhart, the character fails to come alive among disorganized direction of Mira Nair and a script that invested in all the wrong places.

Amelia longs for the freedom of the sky and finds the idea of becoming a vagabond idyllic.

In the process of breaking records by flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean and attempting to circumnavigate the globe, the patchwork story of her relationship with husband, George Putnam (Richard Gere), her affair with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor), and the complication surrounding her stardom becomes tedious and boring.

At what appears to be an attempt to protect the movie from a romance plot, the film fails to create a believable intimacy between Ameila and her two love interests. There are no thrills, no excitement and no passion.

Instead we get a sketchy plot that leaves too much to the imagination. Her life is so perfect that it’s dull and unbelievable.

Although Earhart was a beloved American icon whose disappearance has sparked theory upon theory, the movie glosses over so much of her life that she never truly appears as a person. In fact, we would be better served by looking at pictures.

The footage is beautiful as Amelia flies over the wonders of the world, but the cheesy voice-over ruins it. Instead her commentary is a failed attempt to establish a connection with the audience. Not to mention the numerous attempts to work in actual Earhart quotes, which make the dialogue seem insincere and forced.

By enhancing Amelia’s love for flying above all things, the movie takes for granted the life of Amelia and leaves behind the emotional details that make a biopic soar. Nair’s well-meaning intentions to revive the strong presence of a profound woman do not translate to the screen. For now, the real Amelia still lies somewhere beneath the Bermuda Triangle.