Two-time Academy Award® Winner Hilary Swank delivers an unforgettable performance as Amelia Earhart, the legendary American aviatrix who boldly flew into the annals of history. Richard Gere co-stars as her charismatic business partner and adoring husband George Putnam. Bound by ambition and love, their enduring marriage could not be broken by Amelia’s determination to fly — nor her passionate affair with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor). Equal parts gripping drama, stirring romance and epic adventure, Amelia will take your breath away and send your spirit soaring!
- Audio: English: 5.1 Dolby Digital
- Language: Dubbed: English / Subtitled: English, French & Spanish
- Theatrical Aspect Ratio: Widescreen: 2.35:1
With her lanky Middle-America looks and her toothy grin, Hilary Swank is a natural fit for the adventurous figure of Amelia Earhart, the world’s most famous aviatrix. Amelia ticks through the major achievements of Earhart’s career: her 1928 flight across the Atlantic (as a passenger, not a pilot), which made her the first airborne woman to make the trip; more triumphantly, her 1932 solo transatlantic journey; her marriage to publisher George Putnam; and of course the mysterious 1937 around-the-world flight that ended in her vanishing, with engineer Fred Noonan, somewhere near Howland Island in the mid Pacific. With Swank in her pilot togs and director Mira Nair at the helm, the project would seem to have the ingredients for success, but the resulting film is a truly dull, almost featureless affair. The big flights themselves have innate appeal, but otherwise the emphasis is on Amelia’s love life, shared between Putnam (Richard Gere) and the dashing Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor)–who, the film clumsily keeps reminding us, is the father of Gore Vidal, seen here as a precocious tyke. A smidgen of Amelia’s proto-feminist attitude is included, including her intriguing take on her marriage agreement, but nothing actually cuts deep or generates interest. After a while Amelia becomes a series of events, told with less excitement than the average documentary on the same subject, albeit with prettier photography. –Robert Horton
January 15, 2006
#1
A sound and rousing piece of cinema – casting perfection, sure to get good nom nods, but more fiction than fact ….
Thereal story ? Well, there are fortunately still a few codgers around who knew the shy gal and probably helped with “the secret” ….
She really DID find happiness, eventually …..away from all the glitz with someone who really cared.
January 15, 2006
#2
Never in my 34 years have I ever walked out on a movie, but I did with Amelia. So I guess you should take this review with a grain of salt since I only saw about 45 minutes of the movie. But man were those 45 minutes BAD!!! I usually like Hilary Swank, but her acting in this movie was just…weird – as if Amelia Earhart had Assberger’s or something. Her acting was so stilted and wooden that it was really hard to relate to the character. There’s no way anyone actually talks that way, unless there’s something wrong with them.
As for the story itself…it just didn’t go anywhere – or if it did eventually, it took longer than 45 minutes. I can’t really say much more about it because I can’t even remember what happened in those 45 minutes, either because nothing in particular happened, or it was so bad that I blocked it out. This movie was so bad it almost makes it worth watching to marvel at its badness…but not quite.
January 15, 2006
#3
Not only is the script bad, the thing doesn’t flow and is full of technical errors! The really glaring one has to be that it’d be really interesting to see what would have actually happened if someone had really filled up an Electra’s engine oil tank with aviation fuel! How about two enlisted coasties saluting each other? A cutter backed up to what looks like 100′ from an island’s beach? Very few of the scenes flow and much of the dialogue consists of quotes from letters, books and transcripts of radio messages all taken in or out of context. Amelia is first made out to be a simple ‘country girl’ then has flights of poetic rapture about flying. Hilary Swank very seldom gets to do more than just resemble her. Gere turns out probably the best performance, while McGregor is barely able to be satisfactory. Probably not the fault of these three, but the movie isn’t worth more than a rental.
January 15, 2006
#4
The story was mediocre at best. The acting was unrealistic. The entire movie was long, drawn-out and depressing. At best this is a portrayal of a woman that lived only for herself and her foolish ambition got her killed.
January 16, 2006
#5
In the 1930s, Amelia Earhart was a pioneering woman pilot. She married a man who helped promote her flights. She went missing on the last leg of a round-the-world flight in 1937.
That’s all I got from the movie, which is shockingly bad and instantly forgettable. Earhart was a national figure followed by millions, yet you’d never know why from this tepid film. While Hilary Swank seems likeable as Amelia and does bear a striking resemblance to her, the script fails to make her the least bit interesting. The dialogue is tedious, the movie has no excitement or tension, and the director destroys any scenes that might have been emotionally compelling. Richard Gere has the thankless job of playing Amelia’s husband and comes across as a completely dull fellow. Even the music is boring. What a colossal waste of talent.