After the execrable HBO fiasco HEMINGWAY AND GELHORN, I was very wary of Hemingway movies. But this modestly charming film about a young reporter who looks up to the aging Hemingway as a father figure in his final days is surprisingly touching and authentic.
Adrian Sparks is amazing as the aging lion Hemingway. What he puts across is not so much the publicity-hungry tough guy the world remembers, but the shy, reclusive author tortured by sadness and regret and the sense of loss. This is a Hemingway who has accomplished so much but feels deep down that on almost every human level he blew it. The sadness makes it easier to understand the binge drinking and the rage.
Joely Richardson is terrific as Mary Hemingway, Ernest's fourth and final wife. Not only is she tough, beautiful and classy enough to imitate Marlene Dietrich and match Papa drink for drink, but you can see her enormous sadness even when she's laughing her head off. This woman has seen Hemingway at his greatest and now she's stuck with what's left of him . . . but she never gives in to despair.
Now I have to say that the young reporter's story is not nearly as compelling as the lion in winter stuff. Ed Myers is what they call a "Mary Sue" in fan fiction. He's just a stand-in for the viewer, like, "it would be so cool if I got to hang out with Hemingway in Cuba! I bet he'd teach me stuff and we'd go fishing and just hanging around with him would make that pretty girl at the office fall crazy in love with me!" There's nothing about this guy that explains why Hemingway (or anyone else) would adopt him as a son. Or why the prettiest girl in the office would fall madly in love with him.
One final thought: if you wonder how Hemingway himself would have viewed this story of his last days there's a very interesting early story he wrote called "The Battler." It's about how a teenage Nick Adams (really Hemingway himself) comes across a washed up champion prize fighter who's gone punch drunk and become a hobo. The man drifts from town to town in a permanent daze cared for by a single black servant who is really more of a keeper. The champ's ex wife is denounced as a tramp but ultimately it's revealed that she sends the champ money every month so he can drift around and not starve. When I was a kid I wondered what the point of the story was. I think it's Hemingway acknowledging the limits of his own values. You can be the big, tough, famous white guy, you can be the champ at what you do, but in the end the people who are supposed to "serve" you (women and blacks) will end up owning you. Winner take nothing!
This movie tells that story, in a way. But it also suggests a more human possibility of redemption, when Hemingway tells the kid, in effect, "don't be like me. Learn from my mistakes." The resolution is pretty cheesy (the pretty girl at the office? Really?) But at least they were trying to imagine the possibility of hope. Hemingway could have used a little of that himself!
Adrian Sparks is amazing as the aging lion Hemingway. What he puts across is not so much the publicity-hungry tough guy the world remembers, but the shy, reclusive author tortured by sadness and regret and the sense of loss. This is a Hemingway who has accomplished so much but feels deep down that on almost every human level he blew it. The sadness makes it easier to understand the binge drinking and the rage.
Joely Richardson is terrific as Mary Hemingway, Ernest's fourth and final wife. Not only is she tough, beautiful and classy enough to imitate Marlene Dietrich and match Papa drink for drink, but you can see her enormous sadness even when she's laughing her head off. This woman has seen Hemingway at his greatest and now she's stuck with what's left of him . . . but she never gives in to despair.
Now I have to say that the young reporter's story is not nearly as compelling as the lion in winter stuff. Ed Myers is what they call a "Mary Sue" in fan fiction. He's just a stand-in for the viewer, like, "it would be so cool if I got to hang out with Hemingway in Cuba! I bet he'd teach me stuff and we'd go fishing and just hanging around with him would make that pretty girl at the office fall crazy in love with me!" There's nothing about this guy that explains why Hemingway (or anyone else) would adopt him as a son. Or why the prettiest girl in the office would fall madly in love with him.
One final thought: if you wonder how Hemingway himself would have viewed this story of his last days there's a very interesting early story he wrote called "The Battler." It's about how a teenage Nick Adams (really Hemingway himself) comes across a washed up champion prize fighter who's gone punch drunk and become a hobo. The man drifts from town to town in a permanent daze cared for by a single black servant who is really more of a keeper. The champ's ex wife is denounced as a tramp but ultimately it's revealed that she sends the champ money every month so he can drift around and not starve. When I was a kid I wondered what the point of the story was. I think it's Hemingway acknowledging the limits of his own values. You can be the big, tough, famous white guy, you can be the champ at what you do, but in the end the people who are supposed to "serve" you (women and blacks) will end up owning you. Winner take nothing!
This movie tells that story, in a way. But it also suggests a more human possibility of redemption, when Hemingway tells the kid, in effect, "don't be like me. Learn from my mistakes." The resolution is pretty cheesy (the pretty girl at the office? Really?) But at least they were trying to imagine the possibility of hope. Hemingway could have used a little of that himself!