Amelia (2009)

As the famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank) makes her attempt in 1937 to be the first woman to fly around the world, her rise from a young woman with ambitions to be a female Lindbergh to world famous aviatrix is chronicled in flashback. The mystery of Amelia Earhart's fateful disappearance while flying on July 2, 1937 never to be heard from again has captured the imagination of several generations. Several bizarre theories (and some not so strange) have been concocted but this is not concerned so much with what happened to her (it presumes she simply went into the ocean after running out of fuel) but her life. Quite simply, aside from her feminist outlook and rather daring views on monogamy, her life wasn't all that interesting. The film trumps up a romantic triangle involving Earhart, her husband (Richard Gere) and a colleague (Ewan McGregor) in an attempt to sex up the film but it's the least interesting aspect of the movie. The film's tense filled final 25 minutes are very well done and if the rest of the film had been served as well, it would probably have done much better critically and at the box office. The cinematography by Stuart Dryburgh (THE PIANO) is handsome and there's a beauty of an underscore by Gabriel Yared. Directed by Mira Nair (MONSOON WEDDING). With Mia Wasikowska, Christopher Eccleston and Cherry Jones as Eleanor Roosevelt.