Monday, Nov. 02, 2009

Script isn't there for Swank in 'Amelia'

By Edward Robertson, atomictown.com

The movie industry must have caught on to the fact Halloween has transitioned from a children's holiday to one big adult party where all the men get drunk and all the women dress slutty, because apparently they don't trust us to not be too hungover to go see any new releases this weekend.

-- Local show times, theaters.

Anything, that is, but Amelia. I've been to 60-odd movies this year, meaning I've been exposed to roughly 600 hours of trailers. Not one of them was for Amelia, leaving me with no option but to conclude it chronicled the up-and-down lives of that golden celebrity family, the Estevez-Sheens.

That family must go way back, because all I got to see was some lady vrooming around in a bunch of planes so old I think they were powered by steam and Odin. It was exciting stuff nonetheless, but never risked digging below the surface of what this Amelia person was all about.

Hilary Swank (as Amelia Earhart) has wanted to fly since childhood. In 1928, funded by publisher/promoter Richard Gere, she's given the chance to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic — not as the pilot, but as a glorified passenger.

That's just the start of Swank's ambition. Using her fame and the lovestruck Gere's skill at public relations to drum up funds, she's able to fly across the Atlantic on her own. Though Gere's able to talk her into marriage, the dangers of her life provide a steady strain on their relationship.

The best part of any biopic is the early years. That's when we get to see them down and out, scuffling for any opportunity they can lay hands on, marrying that first wife they later trade in for a younger, slimmer model, doubting themselves but never letting go.

More importantly, that's when we get to know them as people.

Amelia doesn't really have any of that, which may be why it's so damn hard to get a handle on the woman tooling around in all those bad-ass prop planes. Beginning with the event that launched her into prominence, it then moves into a string of lectures and public appearances that do nothing to get us closer to what she was really like.

You ever tried to get to know someone at a lecture? No matter how hard you flash your bare chest at Senator Murray, she's just going to go on with her prepared marks about "education" and "leading the state in the right direction." She's got her game face on, not her face-face.

Amelia tries to get us inside its lead's head by reading a bunch of her no doubt real-life letters, as if being treated to reams of elaborately phrased prose is going to make her character more intimate, but that's just a different side of that impersonal public face. Swank throws a lot into her performance, but the script just isn't there for her.

Too bad, because it turns out Earhart's life was pretty danged interesting! (For instance, did you know she flew planes?) Leaping from milestone to milestone with no clear picture of her subject, director Mira Nair can't work up much drama, even when Swank is literally risking her life.

By the time it reaches its tragic and mysterious end, it's clear Earhart's story is worth telling. As for Amelia, it's too heavy on the history and too light on the woman who made it.

Grade: C+