| Movie DescriptionOn July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank) and her navigator, Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston), are on the last leg of an around-the-world flight. Moving in vignettes from her early years when Earhart was captivated by the sight of an aircraft flying overhead on the Kansas prairie where she grew up, her life over the preceding decade gradually unfolds. As a young woman, she is recruited by publishing tycoon and eventual husband George Putnam (Richard Gere) to become the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean, albeit as a passenger. Taking command of the flight results in a success and she is thrust into the limelight as the most famous woman pilot of her time. Putnam helps Earhart write a book chronicling the flight, much like his earlier triumph with Charles Lindbergh's We, gradually falling in love with his charge, and they eventually marry, although she enacts a "cruel" pledge as her wedding contract.
Embarrassed that her fame was not earned, Earhart commences to set a myriad of aviation records, and then recreates her earlier transatlantic flight, becoming the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic. Throughout a decade of notoriety, Earhart falls into an awkward love affair with pilot and future Federal aviation administrator Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor), but is drawn back to her husband on the eve of her last momentous flight, a round the world circumnavigation that is fraught with perils. Earhart's first attempt ends in a fiery crash in Hawaii, forcing her to take the repaired Lockheed Model 10 Electra "Flying Laboratory" in a reverse direction, leaving the lengthy transpacific crossing at the end of her flight.
Setting out to refuel at tiny Howland Island, radio transmissions between USCGC Itasca, a Coast Guard picket ship, and Earhart's aircraft reveal a rising crisis, as her fuel begins to run out. Her last message is a cryptic position report that the Coast Guard radio operators realize is not of sufficient length to provide a "fix". Earhart and Noonan continue to fly on, as the story ends. |
