Her disappearance in the South Pacific on an around-the-world flight in 1937 probably overshadowed Amelia Earhart's actual achievements as a record-breaking flier, a pioneer in the young field of aviation. Her vanishing precipitated decades of intense investigation and fanciful conjecture, ironically keeping her memory alive and guaranteeing her a kind of immortality quite different from what she or anyone else in her time could have expected.

Avoiding any speculation about espionage missions or capture by the Japanese, "Amelia" uses that final flight as a structure for a biography of this daring, determined, fascinating woman. The picture begins with Earhart (Hilary Swank) piloting her airplane over remarkable landscapes as she remembers a series of episodes from her past, the people and events that enabled her to embark on her last great adventure. Numerous flashbacks, accompanied by a poetic voice-over narration, apparently in Earhart's own words, provide some insight into her personal life and professional career, sketching out some of the early history of American aviation along the way.

According to the movie, Amelia Earhart fell in love with flying as a young girl, yearning to escape from the endless flatness of the Kansas prairies to the infinity of clouds and sky. Despite a few glimpses of her piloting the rickety old biplanes of a bygone time, the picture skips over just how she learned to fly and what led her to New York City to apply for the chance to fly across the Atlantic. The promoter of the stunt, the publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere), a relentless publicity hound, makes her the nominal "commander" of the crew of two men who actually fly the plane, and launches her career as one of the great international celebrities of the 1930's.

Cutting frequently to other moments in her past, sometimes with flashbacks within flashbacks, the movie covers the relatively short span of Earhart's career as she sets records for altitude and distance, and most important, becomes the first woman to solo across the Atlantic. It also shows her relationship with Putnam, who ruthlessly exploits her fame in books, lecture tours, and dozens of commercial endorsements. While she only wants to fly, he convinces the reluctant celebrity that the commercialization of her achievements earns the money that allows her to practice the profession she loves.

The professional relationship turns personal, as she and Putnam become lovers, then husband and wife, a significant step for a woman who flies because it gives her the freedom she loves beyond all else. She insists on an open relationship, however, which includes an extended love affair with another accomplished pilot, Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor), the father of Gore Vidal (who seems a lot more charming and attractive as a child, by the way).

Despite her constant differences with Putnam over his assiduous press agentry and blatant profiteering, Earhart achieves a good deal from her celebrity. She convinces President Roosevelt to establish an aeronautical commission, inspires other female fliers, inaugurates a transcontinental race for women, creates the first women's aviation group, and encourages young girls everywhere to strike out on their own, live their own lives, shape their own destinies.

Lithe and leggy, with, as Gere says, a great smile, and more than a touch of Katharine Hepburn, Hilary Swank looks most attractive in the clothes of the time, but the constantly repeated situations and dialogue prevent any deep examination of her character. She and the decidedly uninteresting Gere create neither electricity nor chemistry together; the one moment of real passion, in this rather cold and unemotional film, occurs in an embrace between Swank and McGregor in an (appropriately) ascending elevator.

Despite a brief glimpse of the misery of the Great Depression, "Amelia" suggests a genuine elegance in the America of the 1930's, with a loving attention to the furniture, cars, and clothes of the decade. It shows at least a little of the meaning of flying in that period, when it was an adventure, a relief from the humdrum, a thrilling journey into the unknown, the fulfillment of an ancient human dream. In contrast to the reality of this or any other time, it celebrates Amelia Earhart's great dream of freedom - her yearning to live freely, to defy convention, to escape the bounds of gravity, to soar among the clouds.