magiclips
Posts: 20
Joined: 12/11/2009
|
Amelia Earhart is one of those people whose death made her more famous than her life, but she deserved recognition for what she achieved in her 40 years. This movie achieves it.
Just about everybody knows that Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared somewhere over the Pacific ocean during an ill-fated attempt to fly around the globe. What is considerably less known to non-aviation buffs is that she was the first person to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger, and later the first woman (and only the second person, after Lindburgh ) to pilot an aircraft solo across the same ocean. This film does a pretty good job of letting viewers know that she was a highly accomplished pilot (despite her over ambitious and ultimately fatal final project), and a not-so-perfect human being (she cheats on her husband, played here by an understated Richard Gere).
It helps the film, as many critics have pointed out, that Hilary Swank in the title role bears an almost uncanny resemblance to the real Earhart. The fact that Swank is an extremely good actor obviously helps to bring the role alive, both in the flying scenes and those of a more terrestial nature. She is a feminist, yes, but not of the foaming-at-the-mouth variety, and Swank handles this aspect of Amelia's life very well.
The film is shown in flashback, a method which usually irritates me but which works all right here. The action switches between Earhart's final flight and earlier periods in her life, all the way back to her earliest fascination with flying when stuill a young girl living in rural Kansas. Perhaps it is because we know the outcome of that final flight (without ever knowing exactly how it ended) that the flashbacks work. It is plainly obvious that any movie about Amelia Earhart will lead up to that ill-fated final flight, and as such it really doesn't matter how the story gets there.
Many strange and even downright absurd theories have emerged over the past 70 plus years about
|
Printable Version
Amelia - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread