Who's In It: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, Cherry Jones
The Basics: Poor Hilary Swank. She's now an Academy Award addict. I mean, that's got to be what's up, right? She has two and now she wants a perfectly symmetrical three on the prize shelf in her office. And she thought maybe that the sweet, lovable Freedom Writers movie was going to catch her # 3. But it didn't and here's why: long hair and skirts. No one trusts her when she looks like that. It's weird enough to see her all dolled up like a lady at the Oscars. But at least she's gone after a few minutes on that show. In a movie, where you have to look at her for two hours, audiences clearly prefer a butchy, jock-strap-stuffing, pantsed and short ugly hair-doing Hilary. So now she's Amelia Earhart, the totally-in-love-with-her-husband lesbian icon of take-charge aviatrices.
What's The Deal: I would like to tell you more about this movie but I have to admit that I spent its running time fighting off a nap. I wasn't sleepy before I got there. The movie did it to me. Not since The Legend of Bagger Vance have I struggled so mightily to stay awake during a film. And I mean struggled-struggled, like in a Braveheart kinda way. Epic, heroic, valiant lids-pinned-open fight to stay awake during a movie that sucks all the interesting stuff out of this fascinating historical figure in favor of showing her get all wet-eyed every time she talks to Richard Gere. Earhart died in 1937 and the movie feels like it could have been made that year, too.
And Swank's Not Even The King Of The Wet-Eyes In This Movie: Richard Gere's trademark twinkly power-ducts are like supersoakers of gentle lovemaking. The man knows why he was hired, and it's the same reason he's hired for romantic weepies like Nights in Rodanthe: he knows how to give the hypnotic love-gaze and how to hold a woman dramatically. Dude is the master of that stuff. So if that's your thing, you'll enjoy watching him hit lowballs for 120 minutes.
What They Left Out: All of Earhart's struggles with male social control and gender expression, her motivations for being the woman she became, her drive to accomplish record-breaking flight after record-breaking flight--basically every single thing that made her unique.
Honorable Mention For: Ewan McGregor, who must have decided that his film career, one that usually revolves around playing interesting people in interesting ways, needed a shot of bland. I remember his tuxedo more than anything he said or did on screen. At least when George Lucas is trying to kill your career you get to hold a light saber.