Amelia

Editorial

Starring two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank as the legendary aviatrix, Amelia seems to have most of the qualifications a certain award-offering Academy looks for in its winners. From storyline to its star, here be the kind of movie Oscar himself would make.

But director Mira Nair's non-turbulent, genteel flight over the major events of Earhart's amazing existence hasn't drummed up any trophy talk. Instead, it's been met by underwhelmed passengers trying to work out how such a record-setting life produces such an average biopic. Amelia, the movie, is suitably polished and smartly situated in the "Jazz Age", costumes and location dressing often performing with more feeling and verve than Swank.

For such an acclaimed actress, Swank regularly finds it difficult to hold the screen and her nice-as-pie Earhart hardly gets out of the hangar. Working in concert with Nair's reserved handling of such rip-roaring stuff as Earhart's pioneering piloting and her complicated, high-profile marriage and public life, stolid Swank renders America's first lady of the skies as a smiley shadow of a legendary female empowerer.

As the two men in Earhart's personal cockpit, Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor also struggle to get off the ground, natty actors landing short of turning characters into actual people. Both are further stalled by Swank's blank slate, encouraging audiences to keep their distance from Earhart events.

Nair glides over controversy and scandal with the same glossy grace as any other incident, robbing a dynamic journey of the passion and importance it clearly contains. Learning about Earhart's exploits is the best part of Amelia, and Nair finally injects courage and a heartbeat in the tense, instructive scenes of our heroine attempting to circumnavigate the globe. Such a strong encapsulation of Earhart's bravery and breaking of new ground should have been the flightplan all along.

Hilton Thomas