Amelia MOVIE REVIEW
When art imitates life, like in a big screen bio-epic, sometimes the translation goes so poorly that we feel like we’re trapped in a bad museum souvenir shop for two hours.
Take the characters in “Amelia,” who look and sound more like animatronic figures at the Air & Space Museum than real-life history makers. Every sanitized, faux-jolly line of script is spoken like it’s from a decades-old toothpaste commercial. The story is less enthralling the actual 1930s news clippings that we don’t get to see until the end. And even then, you don’t even get the chance to buy some $29 Amelia Earhart commemorative wings to remember the horrid trip by.
In "Amelia," the audience is never invited up close and personal with flying ace Earhart (Hilary Swank), publicist and husband George Putnam (Richard Gere), or ever the ancient aircraft scurrying across the Atlantic and then the globe before disappearing under a wave of History Channel specials. Yes, the planes and early aviation craft are – or should be - the supporting stars of “Amelia.” But they might as well be miniature replicas held under smudged glass, lock and key. Never do we feel like we’re flying aboard true Depression era contraptions built on nuts, bolts and prayers, even when the cinematography begs us to soak in the clouds.
Heck, I’ve been in a flying warbird that post-dated Lady Lindy's puddle jumper and globe-trotting Electra, and while it was an exhilarating ride, you couldn’t hear a damn thing. Sure, if you’re a filmmaker, you don’t want the sound of 10,000 ceiling fans to battle your score and dialogue, but at least make an attempt to authenticate the genuine cockpit experience
We all know the Cliff's Notes version Amelia Earhart's adventures, and we expect the movie to probe for hidden bits of wonder and humanity. But it doesn't. For example, during the climatic – and ultimately doomed around-the-world flight – how did Earhart interact with nomadic tribes and even foreign curiosity seekers who saw a plane swoop down and land out of no where. And what did they do when – gasp – a woman jumped down from inside. How the heck does celestial navigation actually work? And what did Amelia actually say to audiences during all those exhausting speaking functions she attended to pay for her flying fancy? These are all potentially interesting nuggets that are never fully mined for entertainment. Instead, we get Gere and Swank giving off worse sexual heat than Harrison Ford and Anne Heche.
The ironic thing is that for all its lack of textbook indulgences we might appreciate, Amelia and smitten hubbie Putnam are actually given the textbook treatment. We only get to know them about three paragraphs deep. From all accounts, Earhart was a spitfire. (And apparently a bad poet.) She had a wondering eye and an unbreakable hubris. But Director Mira Nair never shares the intimate details that could help steer Oscar-winning Swank’s impression into a sublime feat of acting.
Amelia Earhart fueled aviation, feminism and endless conspiracy theories. But maybe her Hollywood likeness sadly topped out in the tepid, "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" as a secondary character. And irony of ironies, yes, this movie is about a museum. A big and famous one with a gigantic souvenir shop.
