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AMELIA |
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Hillary Swank is the Katharine Hepburn of this generation. She takes challenging unglamorous roles and turns them into superior performances. Unlike Late Winslet, she does it
without taking off her clothes and hoping into the sack. Swank has played a boy, a boxer, a courageous schoolteacher and several other
roles that the average actress might overlook. In "Million Dollar Baby" and "Boys Don't Cry" she took home Oscars. She is a natural to play Amelia Earhart - the courageous thrill seeking pilot who was lost
at sea. |
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That said I was mildly disappointed in the biopic about one of the most intriguing women of the 20th century. "Amelia" details the life and untimely disappearance of the courageous pilot. But it also goes into her married life with publisher
George Pullman (Richard Gere) who promoted her in a rather domineering but loving way. It is suffice to say that Richard Gere is the king of charming chick-flick actors. Yet he seems totally out of sync with Swank on the
screen. There is something awkward about this high society New Yorker falling for this country bumpkin gal. Although it actually happens
their lack of chemistry makes the story seem contrived. |
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Director Mira Nair (who also has "New York, I Love You) doesn't seem to be able to get the two to gel. Maybe Gere was miscast. Yet we still relive the dramatics of Earhart's last flight when her plane went of course and probably ran out of fuel. The dialogue between
Aerhart and the tower is taut and gripping. But that's Swank at her best. |
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Swank successfully captures the effervescent smile and confidence that Earhart for which was famous. Sadly that is not enough. In the end we are left unsatisfied with the lack of answers of even a blind guess as to Earhart's outcome. I guess I was looking ofr something in the range of Oliver Stone's "JFK". Come on, how about a theory? "Amelia" doesn't suck; it is merely disappointing given Hillary Swanks talent, Gere's rep, Mira Nair's track record (she did "The Namesake")
and the fact that Fox Searchlight has generally hit winners. Maybe that too was in the back of my mind. Remember "The Last King of Scotland"? That was a Searchlight
biopic. Much better! Romantic women will nevertheless swoon with the idea of a gal next door hitting it off with Gere. But historians will be left
empty. --GEOFFREY BURTON
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