What were the creators of “Amelia” thinking when they conceived the movie, and who were they making it for?
They had to believe there was considerable interest in the life of the famed Aviatrix, who disappeared, not so mysteriously, during an ill advised segment of her 1937 attempt to fly the globe. What did they hope to add to her story that anybody who Googles her will know in 30 seconds? After sitting through the movie’s 111 minutes it’s hard to figure.
“Amelia” is no throwaway TV movie, designed to bookend the half hour of commercials that typically figure into a two hour time slot. No, the producers hired a team of high price veterans; Ron Bass, one of Hollywood’s most visible screenwriters, two time Academy award winner Hilary Swank, the appealing Richard Gere, and Mira Nair, a director with real expertise in character pieces. They also worked from two well known biographies. Judging from the look of the period recreations and the multitude of old airplanes, they must have spent upwards of 50 million.
What they got, and let’s be clear about this, it was no accident, is the filmic equivalent of aspirin. “Amelia” lacks almost every element that propels people into theaters, except for pretty pictures, most of which you can see in the trailer.
But let’s X ray a little further, because the things left out of this movie, which speak volumes about the producers’ intentions, are more interesting than the movie itself. Ron Bass, screenwriter of gems like “Rain Man,” and duds like “Stepmother,” covers the high points of Earharts’ life that are typical of bio pics. We find out that she always wanted to fly, that there were barriers against women, and that she persisted in getting things on her own terms. But most of this is completely predictable. The movie Amelia is assertive, confident, and almost entirely lacking personal quirks. The tepid script goes out of its way to avoid any aspect of her personality that might make her less noble than the gorgeous lighting that frames her in each shot. So there’s never any real tension.
Bass’ and co writer Anna Hamilton Phelan’s structure touches on the alleged love triangle involving Earhart, her husband, the publisher and promoter George Putnam, and Gene Vidal, the first head of the Bureau of Air Commerce (also father of Gore.) But it is without any discernable passion. So, like the rest of the picture, it’s just another humdrum event, recorded like a newspaper story. And while the veracity of the affair has been questioned by a number of Earhart’s many biographers, that’s no excuse to treat it so indifferently in a movie. After all there’s a disclaimer in the opening titles. We know liberties have been taken, and we expect interpretation.
There were many great moments in Earhart’s career; for example, her first solo flight over the Atlantic. This, and sequences like it, are expensively detailed. But instead of serving as a jumping off point for drama, they’re played with literal minded visuals devoid of imagination–fly bys, if you will.
Hilary Swank bears a remarkable resemblance to Amelia, and you could say she’s perfectly cast, but most of the credit should go to make up and wardrobe. Swank works the predictable dialogue for every nuance. Still, there’s only so much she can do. The others, Gere, playing her husband, and Ewan McGregor as Vidal, are well accessorized, but bland to the point of gender neutrality. You think, well, they’re trying to sell the clothes, but everybody from Ralph Lauren to the Gap has already plumbed that territory for all it’s worth. Putnam himself exploited that angle back in the thirties, when he put her name on a line of luggage.
The final disappointment, which comes, appropriately, in the last reel, is the gutless treatment of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance. Since there has been much outsized speculation as to what really happened, including the $4 million the government spent trying to find her, the filmmakers had free reign to explore any number of outcomes. But no, once again, it’s just the facts, with plenty of atmosphere. There’s nothing to wake us from the torpor of the preceding 100 minutes. The best closing director Nair can summon is the mildly bereaved Gere standing on a beach, while Gabriel Yared’s soapy score plays over a churning surf. At least the ocean thrashes.
When I did a little looking online, I discovered that the aviation team on the island from which Earhart and her navigator took off, noted that she looked and sounded worn the day of her last flight. The script, however, suggests that her navigator, Fred Noonan, was drinking the night before. The idea that Earhart might have been responsible for her own demise is never really explored, because it would tarnish the bronzed images everybody from the director to the cinematographer strain to create.
So what were they trying to do here? My guess is they were ‘pimping’ the feminist theme to women who came of age in the 70s and 80s. And in their minds, that meant treating their lead like “Seabiscuit .” So they decaffeinated an interesting woman’s life for what they thought was the target audience. It’s called condescension, and my guess, and I’ll resist the temptation to use aviation metaphors, is that the target will dodge the bullet.
When movies like “Amelia” fail to make back their huge investments the studios always drag out that old canard about adults not being interested in adult movies, which they invoke as an excuse to pour every dollar into adaptations of comic books. What they’re really saying is, if you don’t see this bad movie, we won’t make any more like it, which leaves little room for response.
But there is a problem in trying to satisfy the taste of adults. First of all, the adult “demographic,” especially the middle aged portion, is generally harder to please than the teen crowd, simply because they’ve seen more, of both life and movies. So they’re more discriminating. Next, while they may not like shock for the sake of shock, they are more likely to respond to material that’s thoughtful, complicated or even controversial. This, as executives will tell you, is a tall order.
But it’s been done often enough, and everybody connected with “Amelia” has contributed intelligent, artful work in the past. Swank got Oscars for two beauties; the indie “Boys Don’t Cry,” and Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby.” Mira Nair has directed sophisticated dramas in her native India, “Salaam Bombay,” “Monsoon Wedding,” and abroad, “Vanity Fair.” She knows how to work good material. Could it be that this time they tried to pull one over on the masses for a pay day? Well, bankers do it.
I can’t believe there wasn’t a good movie in Amelia Earhart’s life. But this one misses at every turn. Finally, in trying to create a legend in the squeaky clean terms that only children would find credible, the filmmakers did a historical figure considerable disservice. You could say Amelia dies on screen long before her last flight, through no fault of her own.
