Movie Review Amelia

Amelia (2009) 

Directed by Mira Nair 

Written by Ronald Bass, Anna Hamilton Phelan

Starring Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston

Release Date October 23rd, 2009

For some the phrase 'old fashioned' has become a pejorative. Somehow it has evolved from a sensibility or way of thinking to be something to reject and rebel against. The biopic Amelia about the life of legendary flyer Amelia Earhart fully embraces being old fashioned and in doing so gains the grace and elegance of old Hollywood.

Hillary Swank takes the lead as Amelia Earhart the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. She didn't fly the plane; she was a passenger or in her words a sack of potatoes along for the ride. It was part of a publicity campaign in 1928 by celebrated showman and publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere).

Just after Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic solo Putnam was looking for ways to cash in after having made money publishing Lindbergh's book. He needed a new hook and found it with "Lady Lindy". All he needed was the right woman. He chose Earhart after interviews with several other women.

He wanted a woman pilot and he got one. Her first book was a hit but Amelia wanted to be more than a passenger. Soon she was planning her own Atlantic crossing minus the other pilots. In one magical night filled with stars and the occasional storm cloud, Amelia Earhart made her solo flight. While she was supposed to land in Paris and ended up in a field in Ireland, the flight was a major success.

George, and the need for publicity, pulled her away from the plane for a time but it wasn't long before Amelia was ready to fly again. And while she became the first woman to fly from Los Angeles to Hawaii and from Los Angeles to Mexico City, there was one goal she had in mind. Amelia Earhart wanted to be the first person to fly around the world.

Hillary Swank's performance in Amelia is a true delight. Her Amelia is infectious, unique, spirited and boyish. Like the characters she played in both of her Oscar winning turns in Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby, Amelia is almost asexual. Charming but not inviting in the typical ways of a woman.

It's no wonder then that of the three romances in Amelia the only one that truly resonates is with flying. Swank connects well with both Gere as George Putnam and Ewan McGregor as Gene Vidal, Amelia's flight instructor friend, future head of the FAA and father of Gore Vidal, but when she gets in a plane and looks out at the horizon there is an almost sexual atmosphere.

Director Mira Nair doesn't linger on that nearly orgasmic delight but merely introduces it and moves on. This is, after all, a classic, old fashioned biopic. Nothing too unseemly is welcome here. And that's okay. If you want salaciousness go watch a different movie. Amelia is a charming, engaging old school biopic that gets its juice from great actors delivering strong lines and building characters we come to care about.

There is no need for this film to plod through rumors about Amelia's sexuality. Her only real relationship is with the controls of her plane. The film hints at and wants you to believe that Amelia eventually loved George Putnam after his years of devotion to her. It would like us to believe there was passion in her dalliance with Gene Vidal and we can see the chemistry in each relationship, but watch Swank in the flying scenes and you see true devotion.

That is what makes Amelia Earhart's story so unique. Her love is something that you really cannot understand unless you share her passion for flying. She went for Gene Vidal because he was a flyer, they related on that level. She loved George Putnam because he indulged her flying and through money and publicity, made it all possible. 

That might seem strange or wrong to you but this movie understands it and presents it in a way that allows the audience to come around to it and eventually understand it as well. We all have passions that others may not understand. Amelia's passion was for flight. What a joyous notion that a movie could find a way to understand that so fully.

Movie Review: Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair (2004) 

Directed by Mira Nair

Written by Julian Fellowes

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Eileen Atkins, Jim Broadbent, Gabriel Byrne, Romola Garai, Bob Hoskins

Release Date September 1st, 2004 

Published September 1st, 2004 

In its day, William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, written in 1847, was a witty and scathing rebuke of the British society in which it was set. In the ensuing 157 years, even as society in Britain and elsewhere has changed, the wit of Thackeray's words has remained and Hollywood has taken notice more than once. First adapted in 1935 in the very first film ever in Technicolor, Thackeray's novel was renamed for its heroine Becky Sharp and won an Oscar nomination for star Miriam Hopkins.

The book found its greatest exposure in the mini-series format where it has been adapted three times. Because of the large number of characters, subplots, and endlessly witty dialogue exchanges the mini-series seems to be the truly ideal format for this story. A perfect example of that is the latest film adaptation of Vanity Fair by Mira Nair and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Julian Fellowes which evokes the images of the story but has no time for the depth and breadth of it.

Reese Witherspoon takes on the difficult role of Becky Sharp, the razor tongued social climber who in the book is not the most sympathetic creature. In the film, after a little back story about how Becky was the orphaned daughter of a starving artist sent to live and work in a finishing school, we find Becky taking advantage of the one friend she has made in her life Amelia Sedley (Romola Garai). In this scene at least Becky seems genuine, if a bit devilish towards her ex-schoolmates and teachers.

Becky is leaving the school to join Amelia and her family for a week before she begins life as a governess for Sit Pitt Crawley (Bob Hoskins). In the week with Amelia's family, Becky hopes to take advantage of her friend’s kindness and find herself a way into high society. Becky's chance opens up when Amelia's brother Jos returns from his military post in India. Jos is shy, overweight and easily mislead, the perfect patsy for Becky who would marry anyone to get into high society.

Unfortunately for Becky, Amelia's fiancé George Osbourne (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is far savvier than Jos and helps the fat man see through Becky's scheming. With no fiancé to help her climb the social ladder, Becky is off to the home of Sir Pitt Crawley where a whole new scheme must begin. It doesn't take someone of Becky's street smarts long to insinuate herself into an important position in the Crawley household. She makes an especially strong impression on the most important Crawley, Sir Pitt's sister Miss Crawley (Eileen Atkins) the one with all of the family's money.

Miss Crawley and Becky are fast friends as both have a quick and savage wit. Miss Crawley claims to detest the class system and any system that would place her dull witted clan ahead of someone like Becky simply because of breeding. However Miss Crawley's true feelings are tested after Becky elopes with Sir Pitt's youngest son Rawdon (James Purefoy) who was Miss Crawley's favorite and the one most likely to inherit the family fortune.

This is a lot of plot and I have not yet mentioned Rhys Ifans as Major Dobbin and Gabriel Byrne as Steyne both of whom are pivotal in the book but get a bit of a short shrift due the films 2 hrs 17 min. runtime. Even the plot I have already described is embellished a bit on my part from what I know from reading the book. Having read it, I can fill in the gaps that Ms. Nair and Mr. Fellowes rush over in order to get a more salable runtime.

Clearly there was some sort of studio mandate on runtime because there is simply no other way to make sense of the cuts made by the talented director and writer. People who have not read the book will often be left wondering what just happened as the plot points are introduced and left behind in mere moments as the narrative jumps ahead years in leaps and bounds. Important plots about deaths, births and cross-continental moves are left on the cutting room floor leaving the audience unsatisfied, with little to no catharsis or consideration.

To be fair Thackeray wasn't much interested in catharsis as he was in the witty, sexy, and devilishly clever banter of his characters, especially Becky Sharp. At the very least in the book, you have Thackeray as narrator offering some commentary on these life-changing events, usually with a very witty aside. There again points to another problem with the film, it lacks Thackeray's voice which is the books true source of humor. Like the cattiest of gossips, Thackeray's narration let us inside the thoughts of each character and spelled out important motivations.

The filmmakers rely heavily on their actors to deliver the characters inner lives and while this is a talented group of actors who communicate insight, intelligence, and humor the audience members aren't mind readers and the filmmakers can't just assume people will get it. That is unless you read the book then maybe you do get it. Maybe the film’s biggest issue is the way Thackeray's biting satire has been softened to appeal to a more mainstream audience.

That appeal to the mainstream extends to the casting of Reese Witherspoon as Becky Sharp. Ms. Witherspoon is a terrific actress who has the perfect face to play Becky Sharp, with that devilish glint in her deep-set eyes and that hint of a snarl in her smile she evoked my vision of Becky. The problem is her star power and presence overwhelms the lesser-known cast members that surround her. In scenes where the film shoehorns in the subplots about Romola Garai's Amelia or Rhys Ifans as Dobbin we are left wondering where is Becky. Also to accommodate someone of Ms. Witherspoon's obvious likeability, many of Becky's sharp edges have been softened so as not to offend her fanbase.

The only cast member that is able to make a real impression outside of Ms. Witherspoon is Eileen Atkins as Miss Crawley, probably because she is the only character other than Becky allowed to employ Mr. Thackeray's wit. Other characters make strong impressions in the book but have no time to do so in this film and may hav been better off left on the cutting room floor. More focus on Becky and her plot would seem to be the only way to make this film work.

Ms. Nair nails the period in her direction and embellishes it with the Indian imagery that she is known for from her wonderful Bollywood movie Monsoon Wedding. Thackeray himself was born in India and includes a number of references to British military outposts in that country and how the culture was part of the zeitgeist of the time amongst British aristocrats. That zeitgeist is well captured in a scene that wasn't in the book, a dance scene in which Becky and other high society woman perform a traditional Indian dance for the King of England. For a film budgeted at a mere 35 Million dollars this a lavish production.

The crux of the problem with Vanity Fair is a war between the filmmakers and the producers with Ms. Nair and the creative team looking to do a faithful adaptation and producers fighting to make the film more commercial. The many compromises made along the way, run time, casting amongst others, are obvious and distracting. The films ending is definitely a victim of these compromises as it comes completely out of left field and depends on one credibility testing bit of luck and timing.

Vanity Fair was supposed to signal the beginning of the Oscar campaign season. However when the film missed its original fall 2003 opening and was dropped into the first week of September, many in-the-know Academy watchers threw up red flags. Our suspicions were correct, Vanity Fair is unlikely to challenge for any of the major awards at the end of the year. Compromise, it seems, is not always a good thing. 

Movie Review Monsoon Wedding

Monsoon Wedding (2001) 

Directed by Mira Nair 

Written by Sabrian Dhawan 

Starring Naseeruddin Shah, Lilete Dubey 

Release Date November 30th, 2001 

Published November 30th, 2002 

For those who don’t know what Bollywood is, you're not alone. Until last year's Oscars when the film Lagaan received a Best Foreign Film nomination and news organizations began running news stories about India’s filmmaking machine, I thought Bollywood was a misprint. In reality, Bollywood is the name of India’s film industry which turns out more films every year than even Hollywood. Most Bollywood movies are musicals, in which characters and dialogue are secondary to lavish production design and bring-down-the-house broadway style musical numbers.

Indian director Mira Nair bucks the musical trend of her Indian brethren with American style narrative-based films that allow Indian actors to carry the day. Her most recent film, Monsoon Wedding is a joyous tribute to her family and heritage that combines classical Bollywood elements with her Americanized narrative style.

Monsoon is the story of an arranged marriage between Aditi (Vasundhara Das) and Hemant (Parvin Dubas) and the chaos that surrounds it. Aditi’s father Lalit (Naseeruddin Shah) is attempting to plan the wedding in the midst of running out of money and dealing with an incompetent wedding planner named Dubey (Vijay Raaz), who has no idea what anything actually costs until he finishes doing it. 

Dubey is also involved in a romance with Lalit’s maid Alice (Tilotama Shome), a romance that must be kept quiet out of fear of being fired. Aditi has even more problems having only agreed to the arranged marriage because her current lover won’t leave his wife. Aditi still has feelings for him even as her wedding is only two days away. Drama also surrounds Aditi’s cousin Ria (Shefali Shetty) and a family friend who, it is inferred, may have done something to Ria when she was a child.

As the film goes on music is weaved throughout, but not Broadway style sing and dance numbers, rather a heavy dose of Indian pop tunes which are surprisingly good even if you don’t understand the language. The songs are as much a part of the film as the actors, and while they don’t tell the story, the songs give the film its light airy tone.

While Nair focuses on storytelling, she does indulge in classic Bollywood production design. Bright lavish colors and even a dance number. These things are not out of character, they are a traditional part of an Indian marriage.

I am curious about how much of Monsoon Wedding is an insight into the real lives of Indian people. As I previously mentioned, Nair has an Americanized way of telling a story, which some Indian critics say doesn’t reflect real Indians. Rather odd criticism from critics who most often enjoy lavish musicals where characters break out in song for no reason. Somehow I doubt Lagaan or any other traditional Indian film is a real reflection on Indian life.

The same criticism was leveled by French critics towards the French romance Amelie. French critics felt that Amelie was too American to be a real French film. Accurate or not, Monsoon Wedding does at times feel a little Hollywood, or as Indian critics politely put it, too westernized.

Monsoon Wedding is very reminiscent of another wedding-based movie, Nia Vardalos My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Both films share the themes of marriage and family, though in Greek wedding the bride and groom choose each other, in Monsoon Wedding the marriage is arranged. Surprisingly though, the arrangement of the marriage isn’t much of an issue. Both Aditi and Hemant accept that this is part of their heritage and while the lives they have lived to this point have been entirely separate they see a future together. Arranged marriage or not you can see through pride and cooperation that this marriage has as much a chance at lasting as any. It may not be sexy, but what tradition is.