It’s a question for our times, and the one novelty of Mira Nair’s film is that it sets the conundrum in an earlier era, when celebrity branding wasn’t yet a national way of life. For all its dull pomp, “Amelia’’ is unexpectedly frank about how Earhart’s public persona - “Lady Lindy,’’ the dashing flying flapper - was an invention of, among others, publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere). Her first Atlantic crossing, in 1928, was a blatant fraud: Earhart sat in the back while Wilmer Stutz (Joe Anderson) and Louis Gordon (Aaron Abrams) piloted the plane.
After the ticker tape has been swept up, Gere’s Putnam sets Amelia to writing a book, posing for fashion shoots, endorsing Lucky Strike cigarettes and Kodak cameras and luggage and waffle irons. “Amelia’’ views this star pimpery with a level gaze, leaving judgment up to us. Earhart goes along with the charade because she loves Putnam and she loves being famous (it is, after all, the American way), but sooner or later her independent streak re-surfaces.
In 1932, Earhart flew the Atlantic again, this time solo and at the wheel. She worked to promote women fliers and commercial flight. She took Eleanor Roosevelt (Cherry Jones) up for a spin. And she kept an open marriage, carrying on a relationship with aeronautics expert Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) that Putnam, by then her husband, had little choice but to accept. As one character makes sure to remind us, she lived like a man.
The film juggles all this as best it can, dropping a number of balls along the way. The primary problem is that Nair (“Monsoon Wedding,’’ “The Namesake’’) doesn’t have the knack for this genre - we’re not convinced by the corny sweep of “Amelia’’ because we sense its director isn’t. This is one of those movies where the period re-creation - the props and costumes, the cars and sconces - feels perfectly crafted and perfectly oppressive. Even Gabriel Yared’s score feels left over from some forgotten Richard Attenborough epic.
