Rashid Irani's Review: Amelia

While the aerial vistas are breathtakingly photographed, there is little else to sustain our interest in the melodramatic proceedings. Read on for the complete review.

Film: Amelia

Cast: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere

Direction: Mira Nair

Rating: ***

A lavishly-mounted biopic of the pioneer aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, Mira Nair's film doesn’t quite soar as it could have.

The slender storyline chronicles the life of the freckle-faced flier from her childhood in Kansas to the ill-fated day in 1937 when her plane disappeared over the Pacific. Her passion for flying was a constant till the end of her days.

The self-styled “vagabond of the air” almost fulfilled her lifelong ambition to fly solo around the globe.

While the aerial vistas are breathtakingly photographed, there is little else to sustain our interest in the melodramatic proceedings. The scenes between the celebrity feminine icon and her publisher husband (Gere, unduly glum) are bogged down by heavy-handed dialogue.

Their tearful farewell is extremely schmaltzy. Also, Amelia’s romantic dalliance with her pilot friend (Ewan McGregor) is given short shrift.

To be fair, though, the last 15 minutes or so in which Amelia desperately seeks to establish radio contact with a tiny military base in the middle of the ocean, whips up sufficient throb and tension.Bearing a striking physical resemblance to the real “Lady Lindy”, two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank delivers another astonishing performance.