There was once a contest called the International Imitation Hemingway Competition, better known as Bad Hemingway, in which entrants submitted the most-ludicrous, ham-fisted short stories in the style of the man some consider the greatest writer America has ever produced, Ernest Hemingway. Too bad the contest is now defunct, because the twits behind Hemingway & Gellhorn could have submitted this ham-fisted ludicrousness, and "won" hands down!
I positively howled at the scene where a bomb explodes as the title characters are doing the nasty, stop as debris rains on them, then pick up where they left off. Then, the film had the gall to have the heroine come upon the crying baby who was the lone survivor of a Japanese bombing raid (one of the most horrific of all wartime images). When her guide (whom I thought at first was the butchiest woman in China) tells her there's nothing they can do, I wanted to reach inside the TV, and throttle them! That the guide turned out to be the future Chairman Mao - whose regime killed at least 40 million people (and babies) - was a bit of nasty the filmmakers didn't want to touch with a 10 foot chopstick. Instead, they were too busy turning Mao's partner in crime, Zhou Enlai, into an erudite stud, castrating Chiang Kai-shek, and making a convincing argument for "Papa" and "Marty" being Forrest Gumps's parents!
When one plays a real person, he should inspire the viewer to learn more about that person; Owen and Kidman fail miserably. Granted, Hemingway and Gellhorn were not the nicest people, to put nicely. And Gellhorn cheated on Hemingway throughout their marriage -- another bit of nasty the filmmakers wanted no part of.
Owen looked like a nerdy Groucho Marx, and Kidman looked like, well, Nicole Kidman. And the script was a putrid mess. "You spend so much time arguing with F. Scott Fitzgerald about who has a bigger penis, but I know the truth"? Gag!
After "Marty" kicked the documentary crew out of her apartment, I was hoping she would follow "Papa"'s lead. But no such luck. Instead, we are "treated" to a bizarre interaction between her and a raven at her window (!). Then, she straps a backpack on, and storms out like an overgrown Girl Scout having a bitch fit. She wasn't the only one having a bitch fit.
I positively howled at the scene where a bomb explodes as the title characters are doing the nasty, stop as debris rains on them, then pick up where they left off. Then, the film had the gall to have the heroine come upon the crying baby who was the lone survivor of a Japanese bombing raid (one of the most horrific of all wartime images). When her guide (whom I thought at first was the butchiest woman in China) tells her there's nothing they can do, I wanted to reach inside the TV, and throttle them! That the guide turned out to be the future Chairman Mao - whose regime killed at least 40 million people (and babies) - was a bit of nasty the filmmakers didn't want to touch with a 10 foot chopstick. Instead, they were too busy turning Mao's partner in crime, Zhou Enlai, into an erudite stud, castrating Chiang Kai-shek, and making a convincing argument for "Papa" and "Marty" being Forrest Gumps's parents!
When one plays a real person, he should inspire the viewer to learn more about that person; Owen and Kidman fail miserably. Granted, Hemingway and Gellhorn were not the nicest people, to put nicely. And Gellhorn cheated on Hemingway throughout their marriage -- another bit of nasty the filmmakers wanted no part of.
Owen looked like a nerdy Groucho Marx, and Kidman looked like, well, Nicole Kidman. And the script was a putrid mess. "You spend so much time arguing with F. Scott Fitzgerald about who has a bigger penis, but I know the truth"? Gag!
After "Marty" kicked the documentary crew out of her apartment, I was hoping she would follow "Papa"'s lead. But no such luck. Instead, we are "treated" to a bizarre interaction between her and a raven at her window (!). Then, she straps a backpack on, and storms out like an overgrown Girl Scout having a bitch fit. She wasn't the only one having a bitch fit.