The Thousands

When you’re making a film about a pixieish lady who succeeded in a man’s world, Hilary Swank’s your go-to girl. At first I found her accent odd here, but turns out that’s just the way pioneering aviatrix Amelia Earhart talked. Amelia is as fluffy and diaphanous as the white clouds and fluttering silk scarves it so often depicts, constantly reiterating that flying slaked Earhart’s thirst for “freedom” from social constraints.

However, it presents Earhart’s contradictions accurately and sympathetically. She’s an industry pioneer (she helped establish commercial aviation), feminist icon (she tirelessly supported women flyers) and celebrity (she endorsed a raft of consumer goods and maintained her income with personal appearances).

There’s also a love triangle between Earhart, her publicist-turned husband George Putnam (Richard Gere) and athlete-turned-TWA airline founder Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor). Earhart and Putnam had no children, and the film (in a rather weaselly way, I think) posits her as a potential mother figure for Vidal’s son Gore (yep, the author). But it’s Putnam who’s left emoting on the shore after Earhart disappears at sea in 1937. Her fate remains uncertain, whereas Amelia’s fate is to be enjoyed by my mum.