Amelia (Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor) – Director Mira Nair (The Namesake) brings the story of pioneer aviator Amelia Earhart to the big screen in a lush, beautiful and schmaltzy story of passion and commitment. Despite the fact that, if you know about Amelia Earhart you know the ending, the film provides surprises about her life and loves. Growing up in Kansas, she was tall and slight. She looked like a tomboy with her short hair and a masculine walk. She fell in love with planes as a child and she committed herself to being an aviator. Women aviators were rare in those formative days of flight in the 1920s and ‘30s. Amelia Earhart was the poster woman of this breed because she looked the part, was so darned good at it, and because she had a Svengali. He was George Putnam, of the Putnam Publishing Putnams, and one of the best promoters and public relations practitioners of his time. He saw the PR potential in Earhart, who came to him in hopes of becoming the female Charles Lindbergh on his proposed flight across the Atlantic. For him, it was all promotion because he had no intention of letting her pilot the flight. She was to be a passenger for the “real” pilot and navigator duplicating Lindbergh’s flight. And while that didn’t fit her goal of being the first pilot to achieve the feat, she went along with it and with the subsequent hype/illusion that she was the leader of the mission. The fame that came with it was unprecedented.
She lectured and made public appearances, both to make Putnam money but also to fund her own career as a pilot. She fronted lines of clothing, luggage, and more. With the money, she flew the world, bought new aircraft, and served as a leader of the women’s movement from her perch above the earth. Did I mention that she and Putnam became lovers and, despite her intention and inclinations, husband and wife? History is conflicting about whether this marriage was one of true love or merely convenience, but the film makes it very clear. They were very much in love. Here is where the schmaltz gets thick. As Putnam, Richard Gere is doting and fearful for his wife’s adventuresome, almost reckless, nature – all the while milking her popularity. This is not his best performance; there’s too much of Chicago’s Billy Flynn in it with a touch of Paul Flanner from Nights in Rodanthe, his worst film in years. As Earhart, Hilary Swank is devoted to him but perhaps not quite as much as she is to flying. Swank is exceptional maybe Oscar worthy. She looks like Swank (OK, she is better looking), talks like Swank and moves like Swank. Along the way, we do learn things we didn’t know about Earhart, such as her affair with Gene Vidal, one of the first Army Air corps pilots, founder of three airlines, first director of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Air Commerce, and father of author Gore Vidal. Together, she and Vidal started their own airline and carried on their relationship until Putnam found out.
The bulk of the film, which is well paced by Nair, is focused on Earhart’s passion for flying. She flies the Atlantic solo as well as sojourning above African and much of the world. Ultimately, she tells Putnam that she wants to circle the globe, something never done before. He is reluctant. When her initial attempt, designed to fly west from California, never gets off the runway, she is forced to change plans by flying east from Florida, leaving the most treacherous part of the trip – the flight across the Pacific – to the end of the trip and against the winds. The rest, as they say, is history. The film is beautiful; it’s enlightening; and it’s melodramatic. But it is ultimately satisfying and a must-see.