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This photo released by Fox Searchlight shows Joe Anderson,left, as Bill Stultz and Hilary Swank as Amelia Earhart in a scene from "Amelia".

Crash landing! Swank's Amelia may take off -- but never lands

By: Joe Stumpo

Posted: 11/5/09

Amelia ?½
PG, 111m., 2009

Cast & Credits: Hilary Swank (Amelia Earhart), Richard Gere (George Putnam), Ewan McGregor (Gene Vidal), Christopher Eccleston (Fred Noonan), Cherry Jones (Eleanor Roosevelt), Mia Wasikowska (Elinor Smith),William Cuddy (Gore Vidal). Screenplay by Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan based on source materials from the books East to the Dawn and The Sound of Wings. Directed by Mira Nair.

Amelia, much to my dismay, falls into that category I refer to as the "one-note performance movie." If such a term exists in Webster's, I am sure the definition is much different from the negative one I have in mind.

The "one-note performance movie" is (1) the type of film where it literally is all about the actor/actress in the leading role and nothing else matters, be it the plot, the screenplay, or any of the other supporting characters. I also define it as 2) a movie so bad, the actor/actress knows it, yet they make the best of their leading role, giving a stand-out performance.

I have seen less than a handful of "one-note performance movies" this year and that is not a good thing. If the Razzies came up with such a category for the first time next year, I would add Dakota Fanning from Push, Sienna Miller from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and Seth Rogan from Observe and Report.

Add Hillary Swank's performance as "Aviatrix" Amelia Earhart to the list of competitors of which there can be only one winner for a Razzie Award in the "one-note performance" category and I predict Swank would win by a landslide. At least that's who I'd vote for.

Swank is no doubt a dead ringer for the real Amelia Earhart in terms of appearance, so much so I find it eerie. We even see her freckles, which is something "the vagabond of the skies" didn't want captured in pictures and newsreel footage of her. Her publicist and eventual husband George Putman (Richard Gere) agreed.

I am amazed sometimes at how actors are made to look exactly like the actual people to the point you could almost be fooled into thinking you are watching the real thing. Val Kilmer looked exactly like singer Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors (1991). The same went for Denzel Washington in his role as controversial African-American leader Malcolm X in Spike Lee's 1992 film.

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.

A movie like this should make us hope Earhart will reach that lone island before fuel runs out on her much publicized flight around the world July 2, 1937, despite the eventual tragic outcome. Instead of making me shed any emotion for the character, all I saw from the film's final few moments was just another scripted scene that was part of her life.

A big screen adaptation about Earhart should not only have the word "epic" written all over it but "Oscar" worthy as well. On one level, Amelia could be considered an art house film that you'd find playing in theaters that show only independent movies. Amelia should have been the kind of film critics would have not only embraced but small crowds as well; enough to still give it a chance at Oscar nominations.

It is instead the equivalent of a forgettable 111-minute TV movie of the week with aerial cinematography that is far from any of the exciting flying shots done in Top Gun (1986) or The Right Stuff (1983). Gabriel Yared's musical score is nothing more than a pale imitation of the memorable slow-moving, inspirational, sometimes sad ballads John Barry churned out for a number of the James Bond movies, Frances (1982) and Chaplin (1991), to name a few.

Even more annoying is how I often had a hard time hearing what the characters were saying. I know I am getting old but I'll blame the theater's sound system; technicians know nothing about making the dialogue stand out and drowning out all the other unnecessary background noise -- before I assume I'm having hearing problems.

Instead of being an independent success, Amelia will probably go down as an expensive, if not embarrassing, flop for Fox Searchlight Pictures. The film reportedly cost $100 million to make and failed to hit the top 10 box office hits opening weekend grossing just a paltry $4 million. If it had been good enough to attract the critics and exhibited Oscar potential, that might have given the film some better financial success.

So much has been discussed in the 70-plus years about Earhart's mysterious disappearance and on whether or not she actually survived. The aircraft she flew in was reportedly never found. There is speculation maybe she and Noonan were taken prisoner by Japanese soldiers and tortured or that she was a spy working for the United States government and that her final trip around the world was just a cover.

The most interesting idea I saw discussed on a National Geographic episode was that she actually returned to the states under a different identity altogether. None of that is discussed or proposed in the movie, where it would have made the storyline more interesting. What we get is just how her fate played out that day.

When movies are based on biographical books or any book, whether it be fiction or non- fiction, I have always heard they are better than the films. Amelia Earhart's life story deserves a better adaptation than the one released. The only thing Amelia does is inspire me want to read those two books about her life on which this film is based.