THR & Variety Clash Over ‘Amelia’

While most people in the movie industry don't read The Hollywood Reporter and Varietyfor their movie reviews (they serve more as purveyors of news and analysis), something strange just happened between the two rival publications. Their takes on Hilary Swank's upcoming Amelia Earhart biopic Amelia could not be more different, with one calling it an "instant classic," and the other saying it's "dismayingly superficial." How could this be? It's time to settle the score.

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Film criticism is an incredibly subjective endeavor, but night-and-day reviews generally occur with polarizing film’s, like Lars Von Tier’s controversial Antichrist—not an Oscar-baiting paint-by-numbers biopic about a universally admired figure like Amelia Earhart. Basically, Ray Bennett, who wrote the positive THR review, and Justin Chang, who crapped on the movie in Variety, need to meet and discuss. Bennett sees the film’s linear, superficial treatment of Earhart’s life as providing “as much information as is needed for those not familiar with the character without expositional clutter while taking time to show the woman’s no-nonsense approach to intimacy as well as the business of flying.” But Chang sees that same lack of in-depth exploration as a gaping flaw: “the character’s passion hasn’t been sufficiently dramatized (this Amelia likes to fly planes because the script says so).”

Meanwhile, Bennett compares Swank’s portrayal of Earhart with the Oscar-winning impersonations of Jamie Foxx in Ray, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, saying hers “could be similarly awards-bound.” Not so fast, counters Change. “It’s Swank who must shoulder the heaviest thesping burden, and her Amelia remains earthbound ... the close-cropped blond hair, the ‘30s costumes designed by Kasia Walicka Maimone, the actress’ wobbly Kansas accent—ends up feeling like one fussy affectation on top of another.”

So who can you trust? How are you going to make up your mind on whether you should give up two hours of your life to a potentially shitty, possibly great film? If one person says one thing, and someone else says another, where do you turn? Why, to Keith Uhlich of Time Out New York, obviously! “There’s nothing more boring than a life embalmed with halfhearted Hollywood bombast, which only makes the film’s fleeting pleasures stand out all the more.” Oh, and what about the AP’s David Germain? “Swank and Nair play it safe to the point of benumbing this woman’s life.” And lastly, just to hammer it home, we can’t forget Emanuel Levy: “Shallow and conventional, Amelia, yet another version of the legendary aviatrix, is a total misfire.”

Ray Bennett, you lose.