Amelia
Directed by Mira Nair and written by Ronald Bass, Amelia is a biography of great American flier Amelia Earhart who disappears while flying in the year 1937. It’s pretty much thought that her plane ditched into the Pacific atoll. However, it’s not the disappearance but her sheer character strength and gritty determination that still fascinates many.
Amelia is portrayed by Hillary Swank and she bears a true resemblance to Amelia Earhart. Seeing the movie, if you know little about Amelia Earhart, it would take no time for you to understand that Hillary Swank looks like Amelia, smiles like her and even has the same mannerisms. She is a kind of actress who fits little into most roles but if she fits in snuggly she will be the perfect one and irreplaceable. In Amelia she just fitted too well with the character, especially her freckles, slim figure, the toughness, her physical fitness and vulnerability. People say that the only reason to see Amelia is to watch the great performance of Hillary Swank.
However, what is upsetting about the film is that you will get to know very little about Amelia Earhart, what you will see is more of her love life and not about the facts that made her an American hero and an extraordinary woman.
In the film you meet Amelia Earhart as a strong, true and brave character with no lady like decorum. In the flight suit she simply looked extraordinarily good. The story is essentially how Amelia Earhart shot to international fame and became a celebrity with the help of publisher George Putnam played by none other than Richard Gere. Her celebrity status helped her to endorse products and even take part in public appearances. The funds collected through this helped her to finance her expensive passion of flying.
Hilary Swank in Amelia
She gets married to George but her marriage suffers as she wanted to keep flying while George wanted her more for public appearances. Amelia was more interested in the promotion of women as fliers and pilots. The movie also delves into a love angle between Gene Vidal and Amelia.
Viewers will get to know all the details about Amelia’s personal life in the flashback of the movie. The scene when the flashback begins is when Amelia is in the air in that fateful flight from where she never returned. The movie deals with the final flight with meticulous perfection. However the film failed to touch the inner senses of Amelia. It failed to explore the extra-marital relationship of Amelia and neither had we come to know what made George fall over this tomboy kind character. We assume that her achievements were far too many and her relationships not that simple and it would take more than extraordinary effort to capsule it into a film yet my thought is that Amelia has been made with major focus on the least important portions of Earhart’s life.
However, what you understand from the film is that Amelia Earhart was no ordinary woman. She lived in her times beyond the ordinary realms of existence and stereotypical explanation of woman.
| Film | Amelia |
|---|---|
| Cast | Hilary Swank as Amelia Earhart Richard Gere as George Putnam Ewan McGregor as Gene Vidal Christopher Eccleston as Fred Noonan Joe Anderson as Bill |
| Director | Mira Nair |
| Writers | Ron Bass Anna Hamilton Phelan |
| Producers | Ronald Bass Don Carmody Lydia Dean Pilcher Genevieve Hofmeyr Kevin Hyman Hilary Swank Ted Waitt |
| Runtime | 1 Hour 41 Minutes |
| Rating | 3.5/5 |
Posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 6:48 pm