Amelia

Name: Amelia
Genre: Adventure, Biography, Drama, Romance
Released: October 23, 2009
Duration: 111 min
Rating: 37
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Hilary Swank, Richard Gere

2009

METASCORE

Generally unfavorable reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews

See All

USER SCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 37 Ratings

See All

5.5

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

5.5	Your Score
5.5	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 37 Ratings

Would you like to write a review?

There is a 75 character minimum for reviews. If your review contains spoilers, please check the Spoiler box. Please do not use ALL CAPS. There is no linking or other HTML allowed. Your review may be edited for content. 0/5000

Check box if your review contains spoilers

Play Sound

Please enter your birth date to watch this video:

You are not allowed to view this material at this time.

Amelia

Now Playing: Amelia

Movie Details & Credits

Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: October 23, 2009 | PG

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Hilary Swank, Richard Gere

Summary: After becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, Amelia was thrust into a new role as America's sweetheart - the legendary "goddess of light," known for her bold, larger-than-life charisma. Yet, even with her global fame solidified, her belief in flirting with danger and standing up as her own, outspoken woman never changed. SheAfter becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, Amelia was thrust into a new role as America's sweetheart - the legendary "goddess of light," known for her bold, larger-than-life charisma. Yet, even with her global fame solidified, her belief in flirting with danger and standing up as her own, outspoken woman never changed. She was an inspiration to people everywhere, from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to the men closest to her heart: her husband, promoter and publishing magnate George P. Putnam, and her long time friend and lover, pilot Gene Vidal. In the summer of 1937, Amelia set off on her most daunting mission yet: a solo flight around the world that she and George both anxiously foresaw as destined, whatever the outcome, to become one of the most talked-about journeys in history. (Fox Searchlight)… Expand

Director: Mira Nair

Genre(s): Adventure, Biography, Drama, Romance

Rating: PG

Runtime: 111 min

See All Details and Credits

Watch Now

Stream On

Buy on

Stream On

Expand

Metascore

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

Ray Bennett

Most of all, Earhart wanted to be able to fly free as a bird above the clouds, and director Nair and star Swank make her quest not only understandable but truly impressive. Read full review

Claudia Puig

Amelia goes airborne but never fully soars. Read full review

Joe Williams

The actress and the aviatrix are a match made in heaven, but surrounding the soaring performance is a movie that's mostly earthbound. Read full review

David Denby

Amelia is handsome yet predictable and high-minded--not a dud, exactly, but too proper, too reserved for its swaggering subject. Read full review

Bob Mondello

The result is verisimilitude without engagement -- a risk-taker's story told entirely without narrative risk -- and a movie that consequently never takes flight. Read full review

Nick Pinkerton

Drawn from two Earhart bios, Mira Nair’s dull hagiography comes in about 111 minutes too long. Read full review

Joe Neumaier

Tis embalmed drama is a ghost from the '80s, a decade that regularly produced surprise-free, caramelized biopics. The airless Amelia is missing practically everything. Read full review

SEE ALL 34 REVIEWS

Write a Review

User Reviews

HankW.

Oct 26, 2009

Hillary Swank is magnificent in anything she is in. This is a biopic and it plays like one. Not every movie has to be explosive and action packed. Some movies strive for authenticity. So, if you are a Transformers fan, this is not for you but if you like movies that are intelligent and well Hillary Swank is magnificent in anything she is in. This is a biopic and it plays like one. Not every movie has to be explosive and action packed. Some movies strive for authenticity. So, if you are a Transformers fan, this is not for you but if you like movies that are intelligent and well acted, this might be the one you have been waiting for.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

WinstonLin

Oct 28, 2009

Despite the reviews, Hilary Swank is STILL on my Oscar-watch.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

bethesdabob

Jan 10, 2011

This movie was superb. Hillary Swank and Richard Gere are terrific. Don't miss it. You will love it; it's low key film-making at its best. Why it received such low scores is beyond me. It is a 10 in my book.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

BillZ.

Oct 25, 2009

I saw the film on its opening night and found a very small audience, mostly made up of seniors who I presume at least know the background to the story. Negative reviews have crippled the film and will likely result in its early demise at the boxoffice. Like most critical reviews of Amelia, I saw the film on its opening night and found a very small audience, mostly made up of seniors who I presume at least know the background to the story. Negative reviews have crippled the film and will likely result in its early demise at the boxoffice. Like most critical reviews of Amelia, reviewers have "dogpiled" on without a clear indication of why the film failed. Amelia is not an epic nor is it the complete failure that has been described in numerous publications. The standard format of a Hollywood biopic is what many reviewers have disdainfully denigrated. Recounting a life with factual rather than fanciful or unsubstantiated accounts, has doomed the film in many reviews. The mystique and mystery of her life is difficult to distill in a film, but judging by the historians and researchers that have chronicled the Earhart saga, Amelia provides an authentic and authoritative depiction of the last decade of her life. What was missing is the understanding by reputedly astute observers of the iconic status of a feminist, daring adventurer and one of the first of the international celebrities of Aviation's Golden Age. Amelia recreates the period faithfully and despite the slice-and-dice studio editing that left key sequences on the cutting room floor (Virginia Madsen's role as George P. Putnam's wife was entirely eliminated), provides the viewer with a glimpse into Amelia Earhart that most modern audiences would not wholly appreciate, yet would be evocative of the most famous aviatrix of all time.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

WilliamW.

Oct 24, 2009

Acting was excellent .It was uncanny how much Swank and Amelia looked alike.The musical score was haunting and beautiful.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

ChadS.

Oct 28, 2009

Her plane is slow. Amelia Earhart's Lockheed L-10 Elektra doesn't zip in the sky like the crates flown by test pilots in other aviation-heavy films such as Tony Scott's "Top Gun" and Phillip Kaufman's "The Right Stuff". The plane's relative lack of speed Her plane is slow. Amelia Earhart's Lockheed L-10 Elektra doesn't zip in the sky like the crates flown by test pilots in other aviation-heavy films such as Tony Scott's "Top Gun" and Phillip Kaufman's "The Right Stuff". The plane's relative lack of speed doesn't translate well to the screen, but this non-dramatic handicap could easily have been counterbalanced through a clearly delineated rendering of how air travel was far from routine during this era, in which each flight came fraught with the possibility of a crash. To set the stage of Earhart's crowning achievement(her solo flight across the Atlantic), "Amelia" should show, not just tell, about the unsuccessful attempts made by other female aviators, which ended in death. There's not enough midair tension to help illustrate historicity's dual nature of Earhart's piloting career, which ideally would have displayed her heroism, in simultaniety with evidence that backed the claims of her piloting contemporaries who disputed her competence. Since Earhart's professional accomplishments come off as surprisingly dull, the aviatrix's personal life; her marriage to G.P. Putnam(Richard Gere) and affair with Gene Vidal(Ewan McGregor), comes dangerously close to defining her. The sweeping musical score sweeps all the daredevil spirit out of her. It's a soundtrack better suited for a swoony, romantic woman of her times, not an iconoclast with steely ambition. The music turns Amelia into something she probably never was: soft. Childless throughout her marriage to the famed book publisher, the film, perhaps invents a maternal side for the pilot, who is exceedingly nice and motherly to Gene's son. The music reduces this trailblazing woman, as if "Amelia" was about the first stewardess to fly across the Atlantic.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

Kadeemluvmusic

Feb 8, 2016

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I didn't pay much attention of the biopic. Hilary Swank was definitely going to be a great choice by playing one of the greatest heroic female-empowered aviators of our time, Ms. Amelia Earhart. But this Amelia movie just plain suck. It"s about 1 and a few quarter hours long and doesn't even have a proper ending to find out more info about Earhart's disappearance. It also didn't help that I was hoping for another Oscar nomination for Swank after her big win in Million Dollar Baby. That didn't happened though the fact that Swank did a decent Amelia Earhart, but the Academy said "no way. Unless it has a terrible Rotten Tomatoes score, there's no chance in hell you'll ever get a shot at the Oscars." Poorly-written but with a splendid cast, but Fox Searchlight just picked the wrong movie at the wrong time.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

SEE ALL 8 REVIEWS