Ewan Mcgregor Movie:

				Label: Fox Searchlight Salesrank:
		MPAA Rating: Media: Theatrical Release

Editorial Review:
With her lanky Middle-America looks and her toothy grin, Hilary Swank is a natural fit for the adventurous figure of Amelia Earhart, the world's most famous aviatrix. Amelia ticks through the major achievements of Earhart's career: her 1928 flight across the Atlantic (as a passenger, not a pilot), which made her the first airborne woman to make the trip; more triumphantly, her 1932 solo transatlantic journey; her marriage to publisher George Putnam; and of course the mysterious 1937 around-the-world flight that ended in her vanishing, with engineer Fred Noonan, somewhere near Howland Island in the mid Pacific. With Swank in her pilot togs and director Mira Nair at the helm, the project would seem to have the ingredients for success, but the resulting film is a truly dull, almost featureless affair. The big flights themselves have innate appeal, but otherwise the emphasis is on Amelia's love life, shared between Putnam (Richard Gere) and the dashing Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor)--who, the film clumsily keeps reminding us, is the father of Gore Vidal, seen here as a precocious tyke. A smidgen of Amelia's proto-feminist attitude is included, including her intriguing take on her marriage agreement, but nothing actually cuts deep or generates interest. After a while Amelia becomes a series of events, told with less excitement than the average documentary on the same subject, albeit with prettier photography. --Robert Horton

Amelia [Theatrical Release] Reviews:
"Amelia" Goes Where Every Other Biopic Has Gone Before
2009-11-30 - "Amelia", the new film from director Mira Nair, starring Hillary Swank as the famed female aviator and Richard Gere as her lifelong lover, G.P. Putnam, is a beautiful film to look at. All of the physical details seem to have been recreated to the smallest detail. But it lacks any storytelling zing and quickly settles into fairly standard biopic mode.

As Amelia Earhart (Swank, who bears a remarkable resemblance) makes her flight around the world with her navigator, Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston, "Jude", BBC's "Doctor Who"), she remembers back to her start and to various key moments in her life. G.P. Putnam (Gere) has just published an autobiography of Lindbergh (who he doesn't like) and is trying to make lightning strike twice. One of his wealthy socialite friends has just purchased a plane and wants G.P. to find the "first woman to cross the Atlantic". Amelia has a lifelong desire to fly prompting her to apply for the position. She jumps at the chance even though it is little more than a charade. Putnam has hired a crew and Earhart will be the "Commander", while the two men actually fly the plane. When they arrive in Europe, Earhart becomes a celebrity. Putnam is only too eager to capitalize but he also finds he likes Amelia's pluck. They become lovers and Putnam wants her to marry him; she is honest with Putnam because she doesn't want to hurt him, she is too much of a free spirit; she wants adventure and doesn't want to be tied down. Eventually, she decides to do the actual flight, alone, to earn the title she already has. Then she makes plans for longer, more dangerous trips. Along the way, she meets Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor), the father of a young boy named Gore (who would grow up to become a famous author) and they have an affair. Then, while making the last leg of her journey around the world, something happens and a mystery begins.

Mira Nair, the director of such films as "Mississippi Mermaid" and "Monsoon Wedding" would seem like a great choice to helm this biopic. A female director used to making largely independent films (if I'm not mistaken, this may be her first big budget film) she seems like a natural fit to tell the story of this very independent woman, an adventurer, who 'defied the odds". But Nair does a strange thing and creates a very straightforward biopic, beautiful to look at but very straightforward and even a little boring.

Because "Amelia" is so straightforward, it almost seems like a series of vignettes designed to capture the buzzwords that might describe Amelia Earhart. I am actually most disappointed with the work of Ron Bass, the screenwriter. Bass is a well-known and very successful screenwriter, the writer of films like "Rainman" and "The Joy Luck Club", so when you go to a film like "Amelia", you expect to learn a little something about the character, to peel back some of the layers and reveal their inner workings. But because everything is so straightforward, it almost seems like he is trying to provide illustrations for a Cliff Notes version of the aviator's life. She is a "woman who defied the odds", so we watch her plan exceedingly more difficult and dangerous flights. As she accomplishes each one, she receives acclaim and notice, but the film seems to downplay most of this. Amelia is also a "free spirit", so she eventually decides to marry G.P. but only after extracting a promise that they both can follow their heart where it leads them. These are all on the surface and don't help us get to the inner workings of the character. We could all learn this from reading a few articles about Amelia on the internet. Why don't we ever learn why she has such an overriding desire to fly? It isn't because she wants fame. But why?

It doesn't help that the film is framed by showing us moments of the fateful flight around the world. An ominous declaration foreshadows the most dangerous leg, but because we are watching the rest of her life, in more or less chronological order, as she remembers back during this flight, the film seems episodic. It feels like so much time is allocated for moment A. Check, move on. So much time is allocated for moment B. Check, move on. And so forth.

Hilary Swank is a very good as Amelia. Her physical resemblance is amazing and she seems to be channeling the spirit of Katherine Hepburn (who, when young, also resembled Earhart). She brings a certain amount of 'daring-do' to the role and this fits nicely. But I think she is really short changed by the director and her screenplay. Since neither really allows her to get to the bottom of who Earhart really was, she can't. She gives life to some of the romantic entanglements but that is about it. We never really get a feel for why she dislikes the fame and promotion side of what she becomes. We never really get a feel for why she wants to fly beyond the brief shot of a young Amelia running through a field, her hand slicing through the air (a shot so stereotypical, I could go on for pages about this moment alone).

Richard Gere is okay as her lover, the publisher G. P. Putnam. He quickly gets across the various aspects of his character (a mover and shaker, ready and willing for the next deal, eager to create buzz about everything he is involved in) and then spends the rest of the film trying to keep Amelia in check. Later, as she moves on to Vidal, he spends what seems like an enormous amount of screen time looking forlorn and crying.

I think it is time for Gere to hang up this type of role. He seems to have a lock playing the older lover of a younger woman and always playing the roles as very emotional and frequently crying. I'm all for male actors showing emotion, but he plays the older lover of younger women far too often. It is almost as bad as Woody Allen consistently casting the hottest young actress in Hollywood as his lover in every film. Granted, there is less of a generational gap between Gere and most of his co-stars, but it is still creepy. Almost as though he is consistently trying to relive his glory days as the hot young lead of such films as "An Officer and a Gentlemen" or "American Gigolo". For me, the real turning point was in "Unfaithful", when Gere played the faithful husband to Diane Lane and she has an affair with Olivier Martinez. Gere is in another generation than Lane, who is herself in another generation than Martinez.

Ewan McGregor is okay as Vidal. We don't really get a sense of who he is or why he is interested in Earhart, but he shows a certain amount of pluck. I'm not sure why, but every time he is on screen, he is interesting to watch, perhaps because we know very little about him and the mystery keeps us guessing and watching. I also find it strange that McGregor isn't even listed as one of the stars of the film. Every trailer and television ad shows all three, but only mentions Swank and Gere by name.

I think "Amelia" is too conventional for its own good and because of this will quickly be forgotten. Considering the amount of box office and buzz it is creating, I think the film may already be forgotten.

Now which film was I talking about again?

Beautiful but not compelling
2009-11-06 - Amelia is a biographical drama about the life of Amelia Earhart, the famous female aviator of the 1920's and 30's. The story is told as a series of flashbacks during the course of her "around the world" attempt in the summer of 1937, which ended with her disappearance and presumed death smewhere near Howland Island in the Pacific. From what I know of Amelia Earhart's life, this film is very faithful to history.

The cast has many talented actors, including Hilary Swank as Amelia, Richard Gere as George Putnam (her husband) and Ewan McGregor as Amelia's business partner (and lover) Gene Vidal. Through no fault of their own, these actors' performances are good but predictable. Despite the beautiful landscape shots, lush sets and great costumes, they just aren't given much to work with. The exceptions are the scene where Earhart and Putnam embrace before she begins her attempt to circumvent the globe, and the scene where they communicate by radio before she takes-off on the final leg of that fatal trip.

For a history buff like me, this is an interesting film. However, in being so faithful to Amelia's memory, the film lacks spark or compelling drama. I'd say renting or buying the DVD is worth it, depending on your level of interest in the biographical or historical dramas, but this is not a film you'll want to see over and over again for its entertainment value. Therefore, I'll rate it at 3 stars.

Free spirited aviatrix
2009-11-05 - "Amelia" is directed by Mira Nair. In the movie we follow Amelia Earhart's (Hillary Swank) love for flying and where it takes her. She meets the publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere), whom she later marries. The film reveals to us her rise to fame as she becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. We also follow her love for George and a brief affair that she had with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor). Raising her goals year after year leads her to aspire to a flight around the world. The movie leads up to this fatal attempt.

The movie successfully conveys Amelia's free spirited enthusiasm for flying, and Richard Gere, is particularly good as George Putnam, who was also the marketing agent behind Amelia. We do get a glimpse into the commercial side of Amelia's pursuits, and how she was used by those around her for financial or political gain. All in all this is a somewhat straight forward biopic, but with that being said, the film moves along quickly enough up until the tragic moment of her disappearance over the South Pacific in 1937.

An extra star for Hillary Swank's performance
2009-11-02 - This bio-pic of Amelia Earhart's rise as America's sweetheart-in-a-jumpsuit to her last moments alive would rate two, or at most, three stars if not for Hillary Swank's likable, honest portrait of the title character. Swank captures the Earhart of the clips we've all seen: confident, open-hearted, with a hint of impish delight and tomboy charm. Swank makes Earthart's ascent to celebrity entirely believable as she radiates passion for flying and for using her pioneer flight as a platform to encourage all women to reach for their dreams. Richard Gere, as her eventual husband G.P. Putnam, puts in a somewhat lackluster performance that has glimpses of affection but not much depth. Yes, he is that "speck of dust in (Earhart's/Swank's) constellation." The real mystery to this film is not what happened to Earhart, but why the screenwriters chose to feature the pilot's connection to Gore Vidal, a child at the time, and why Ewan McGregor's turn as Vidal's father Gene is so wooden and . . . well, boring. This side plot of an affair and Earhart's connection to the Vidals is never confronted beyond a few fleeting moments. Multiple shots of a young, infatuated Gore add nothing but so-what filler. It almost seems as though director Mira Nair and the screenwriters thought America needed a whiff of scandal and connection to other celebrities to make it into a hit. Ironically, given what Earhart wanted to stand for, the filmmakers seemed to have believed that her accomplishments alone could not have carried this film. And for a woman who seemed anything but sentimental, the film threatens to become maudlin at every turn.

Despite the flaws, the film is worth seeing for Swank's performance and a handful of scenes critical of the way Earhart was treated, thus lessening the sentimentality: her role as an arm-candy passenger in her first trans-Atlantic flight, her commercial exploitation at the hands of her husband, and the dubious way she won the first women's air race, all designed to brand the Earhart name. It's no wonder that she wanted to make the first around-the-world flight, perhaps to have something real she could point to as an accomplishment.

I recommend this film for those who have already seen the best films out in the theaters. Not bad but not great, either, "Amelia" is the type of film that can help pass a rainy afternoon or evening without begging for another viewing.

-- Debbie Lee Wesselmann

Snoozefest
2009-11-01 - In the 1930s, Amelia Earhart was a pioneering woman pilot. She married a man who helped promote her flights. She went missing on the last leg of a round-the-world flight in 1937.

That's all I got from the movie, which is shockingly bad and instantly forgettable. Earhart was a national figure followed by millions, yet you'd never know why from this tepid film. While Hilary Swank seems likeable as Amelia and does bear a striking resemblance to her, the script fails to make her the least bit interesting. The dialogue is tedious, the movie has no excitement or tension, and the director destroys any scenes that might have been emotionally compelling. Richard Gere has the thankless job of playing Amelia's husband and comes across as a completely dull fellow. Even the music is boring. What a colossal waste of talent.