Crash landing! Swank's Amelia may take off -- but never lands
Joe Stumpo
Issue date: 11/5/09 Section: A&E
The Doors and Malcolm X offered substance. Amelia offers up everything but. Screenwriters Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan, who base their script on the biographical books, East to the Dawn and The Sound of Wings, along with director Mira Nair, know the notes. They capture Earhart's private life with Putnam, her brief affair with TWA founder Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) and her relationship with his young son, Gore Vidal (the kid doesn't like his name).
In between these dramatic moments is the black-and-white newsreel footage showing the real Earhart's successes and failures, as well as her publicity stunts promoting various products and being an inspiration to women everywhere.
Swank provides a few memorable scenes. I especially liked the moment where she takes First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (Cherry Jones) on a flight. If the incident actually happened, Earhart allowed her to take the plane's controls without anyone aboard knowing it.
I also liked the moment where Earhart showed her vulnerable side and didn't like how she looked. In a scene that could almost hint that perhaps Earhart was a closet lesbian, she tells Gene Vidal how she admires the young, elegantly dressed women sitting at a restaurant, commenting on their nice legs versus her own boyish appearance.
There is even a surprise revelation or two. We learn, for example, that her navigator, Fred Noonan, (Christopher Eccleston) is an alcoholic, which is something, if true, I did not know. It's obvious the filmmakers attempted to stay faithful to the biographical material right down to the model of the ill-fated plane Earhart and Noonan flew in, the Lockheed L-10 Electra.
They just don't know how to put any of this to music. The film and Swank's character are so emotionally distant, it's like spending almost 40 years with someone you've fallen in love with and by the time they have unexpectedly passed on, you are unable to shed any tears because you haven't really gotten to "know" them.
In between these dramatic moments is the black-and-white newsreel footage showing the real Earhart's successes and failures, as well as her publicity stunts promoting various products and being an inspiration to women everywhere.
Swank provides a few memorable scenes. I especially liked the moment where she takes First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (Cherry Jones) on a flight. If the incident actually happened, Earhart allowed her to take the plane's controls without anyone aboard knowing it.
I also liked the moment where Earhart showed her vulnerable side and didn't like how she looked. In a scene that could almost hint that perhaps Earhart was a closet lesbian, she tells Gene Vidal how she admires the young, elegantly dressed women sitting at a restaurant, commenting on their nice legs versus her own boyish appearance.
There is even a surprise revelation or two. We learn, for example, that her navigator, Fred Noonan, (Christopher Eccleston) is an alcoholic, which is something, if true, I did not know. It's obvious the filmmakers attempted to stay faithful to the biographical material right down to the model of the ill-fated plane Earhart and Noonan flew in, the Lockheed L-10 Electra.
They just don't know how to put any of this to music. The film and Swank's character are so emotionally distant, it's like spending almost 40 years with someone you've fallen in love with and by the time they have unexpectedly passed on, you are unable to shed any tears because you haven't really gotten to "know" them.
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