Release Date:  October 23, 2009
Rating:  PG (for some sensuality, language, thematic elements and smoking)
Genre:  Drama, Biopic
Run Time:  111 min.
Director:  Mira Nair
Actors:  Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, Joe Anderson, Cherry Jones

Amelia Earhart was, according to Amelia, the new film about the aviatrix's life, a woman consumed by one passion, and one passion only: She wanted to fly.

Like Dieter Dengler in Rescue Dawn, the Kansas native falls in love with the idea of flight while a child, then gets the opportunity to pursue her dream as an adult. Like Dengler, she faces institutional resistance, but not from the military or from warriors in another land. Instead, her fight is against sexism on the home front in the early part of the twentieth century.

It was a heady time in America, as the optimism of the Roaring 1920s gave way to the Great Depression, and as the public became fascinated with Earhart (Hilary Swank).

But while Amelia hints at a larger picture of American culture in the early twentieth century, it settles for something much more obvious and less satisfying: a narrative built upon the ups and downs of Earhart's romance with publisher and promoter George Putnam (Richard Gere). That relationship never generates much heat, and consequently makes for a largely unaffecting film. By the time the two lovers have their final conversation, knowing it might be their last, many tears are shed onscreen, but no sniffles could be heard, nor tear tracks seen, among the packed house at a recent preview screening.

The story of Earhart has the elements of a great, American biopic. Determined to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, she teamed with impresario Putnam to become the first woman to traverse the Atlantic—but only as a passenger, while men did the main piloting. Putnam sees it as a public-relations move, a way to catapult both of them into the Big Time, and it's here that the film hints at one of its underdeveloped ideas, still relevant to today's audience—the exploitation of public figures in a culture that wants inspiring, photogenic heroes. Putnam is the mover and shaker behind the scenes, and the more interesting character for exploring this, but the filmmakers didn't call their film Amelia for nothing. This is her story, not Putnam's. So we get images of Earhart in flight (scenery!), and of her navigator nearly falling out of a plane (action!), then a too quickly developed romance between Earhart and Putnam, then a romance with another man, Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor, who has more spark on-screen with Swank than does Gere), and a few more scenes of perilous flight.