Hemingway & Gellhorn

Hemingway & Gellhorn
Official poster
Directed by	Philip Kaufman
Produced by	Peter Kaufman Trish Hoffman James Gandolfini Alexandra Ryan Barbara Turner
Written by	Jerry Stahl Barbara Turner
Starring	Nicole Kidman Clive Owen
Music by	Javier Navarrete
Cinematography	Rogier Stoffers
Edited by	Walter Murch
Production company	HBO
Release dates	May 25, 2012 (2012-05-25) (Cannes) May 28, 2012 (2012-05-28) (United States)
Running time	154 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$14 million

Hemingway & Gellhorn is an HBO biopic film about the lives of journalist Martha Gellhorn and her husband, writer Ernest Hemingway. It was directed by Philip Kaufman, and first aired on HBO on May 28, 2012.^[1]

Plot

Telling the story of one of America’s most famous literary couples, the movie begins in 1936 when the pair meet for the first time in a chance encounter in a Key West bar in Florida. They encounter each other again a year later in Spain, while both are covering the Spanish Civil War, and staying in the same hotel on the same floor. Initially, Gellhorn resists romantic advances made by the famous author, but during a bombing raid, the two find themselves trapped alone in the same room, and lust overcomes them. They become lovers, and stay in Spain until 1939. Hemingway collaborates with Joris Ivens to produce The Spanish Earth. In 1940 Hemingway divorces his second wife so that he and Gellhorn can be married.^[2] He credits her with having inspired him to write the novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and dedicates the work to her.^[3] Over time, however, Gellhorn becomes more prominent in her own right, leading to certain career jealousies between the two. Gellhorn leaves Hemingway to go to Finland to cover the Winter War by herself. When she return to the Lookout Farm in Havana, Hemingway tells her that he has divorced Pauline. The two marry and, together, travel to China to cover the bombing attacks by Japan. In China, they interview Chiang Kai-shek and his spouse. Gellhorn is horrified after visiting an opium den. Chiang Kai-shek is fighting the Chinese Communists and Japanese invaders. The two secretly visit Zhou Enlai. Lastly, in 1945, Gellhorn became the only one of Hemingway's four wives to ask him for a divorce.^[2]

Cast

• Nicole Kidman as Martha Gellhorn
• Clive Owen as Ernest Hemingway
• David Strathairn as John Dos Passos
• Molly Parker as Pauline Pfeiffer
• Parker Posey as Mary Welsh Hemingway
• Rodrigo Santoro as Paco Zarra (based on José Robles)
• Mark Pellegrino as Max Eastman
• Peter Coyote as Maxwell Perkins
• Lars Ulrich as Joris Ivens
• Robert Duvall as General Petrov
• Tony Shalhoub as Mikhail Koltsov
• Leonard Apeltsin as Russian Operative
• Jeffrey Jones as Charles Colebaugh
• Santiago Cabrera as Robert Capa
• Aitor Inarra as Felipe Leon
• Diane Baker as Mrs. Gellhorn
• Steven Wiig as Simo Häyhä
• Keone Young as Mr. Ma
• Joan Chen as Madame Chiang
• Orson Welles
• Ivonne Coll as Gypsy Crone

Production

Pat Jackson, the film's sound effects editor, said that the biggest challenge in doing sound for the film was "making the archival footage and the live-action footage shot locally appear seamless."^[4]

Reception

The film received mixed reviews with much praise going for Nicole Kidman's portrayal of Martha Gellhorn.^[5][6] Mark Rozeman of Paste commented "In terms of the acting, there’s little room for complaint. At 45, Kidman remains a fetching and powerful screen presence. Here, she captures Gellhorn’s idealistic, gung-ho leftism without making herself sound overly self-righteous" but was less positive about Clive Owen's role as Ernest Hemingway stating "While Owen easily embodies Hemingway’s extraordinary charisma (and certainly his legendary temper), his performance is often undermined by the British actor’s inability to hold his American accent."^[7] Jeremy Heilman of MovieMartyr.com agreed with Roseman's opinions stating "Kidman is strong here as Martha Gellhorn, using her exceptional figure and old-fashioned movie star glamour to full effect" and that Owen's performance was "inconsistent, goofy one moment and strongly seductive the next."^[8] Todd McCarthy of TheHollywoodReporter.com said of Kidman "Kidman is terrific in certain scenes and merely very good in others; there are a few too many moments of her traipsing around Spain, blond hair flying glamorously, not knowing quite what she’s doing there. But for the most part, she rivets one’s attention, lifting the entire enterprise by her presence.^[9]

The New York Times panned the film, characterizing it as "a disheartening misfire: a big, bland historical melodrama built on platitudes about honor and the writing life that crams in actual figures and incidents but does little to illuminate them, or to make us care about the romance at its center."^[10] In a similar vein Vanity Fair observed that "none of the reviews quite prepared me for the unchained malady of Hemingway & Gellhorn." Of the director they say "it’s as if Kaufman answered the call of wild and it turned out to be a loon."^[11] The Huffington Post described it as "a gigantic missed opportunity, a jaw-droppingly trying waste of time. Don't let the fancy names in the cast fool you: This is a stupid, stupid movie."^[12] Review site Rotten Tomatoes gives the film 50% on the Tomatometer with an average rating of 4.7/10, based on 8 reviews.^[13]

Accolades

References

External links

• Official website
• Hemingway & Gellhorn at the Internet Movie Database