Truly Dreadful Film

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

If you know nothing about Martha Gellhorn then you should definitely see this uneven movie. She was a war correspondent, among other things, in the 20th century The film uses Zelig-like effects to insert the lovers into history, often in black and white. The film ends rather abruptly showing Hemingway's end, but not Gellhorn's. The film is overlong. Again, worth a look as an introduction to Gellhorn.

Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman star in this HBO film entitled Hemingway & Gellhorn.It tells the story of writer Ernest Hemingway and his journalist wife Martha Gellhorn. Philip Kaufman directs in this TV movie that was shown on HBO on 2012.It begins in 1936 when both Martha and Ernest meet for the first time at a bar in Florida.Later,they meet each other again in Spain during a civil war and starts a romance.This effects to a nine-year relationship.They continue with their lives as we get to see Martha go to different countries like China as a war correspondent while Hemingway continues to write novels like "For Whom The Bell Tolls" which his wife Martha inspired him to do so.Then things started to look bleak between the two until the movie ended with Martha being one of the only four wives filling a divorce from Ernest in 1945.The performances of the movie was great.Give credit to both Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman for their portrayal of Hemingway and Gellhorn respectively.Owen provided the needed passion and bravado that Ernest is known for that made him a literary legend.Meanwhile,Kidman was definitely a classic as the beautiful and determined Martha Gellhorn,who would not want to be known simply as Hemingway's wife alone.Her journey from being a journalist to a war correspondent was a great story.While it may not be totally about the romance but rather more on the respective careers,it was still a good TV movie.

The production values on this TV movie are impeccable; expensively mounted sets, well-crafted costumes, and a clever use of technology that integrates the modern-day actors into archive film. This latter technique is especially good when it comes to showing Hemingway (Clive Owen) and Gellhorn (Nicole Kidman) and their involvement in the Spanish Civil War, and on their return to late Thirties New York. The main problem with Philip Kaufman's film, however, is the plot, which does not have much to say about the two protagonists, other than the fact that Hemingway's capacity to love women was often severely affected by his obsessive masculinity. The desire to prove himself triumphed over everything; it invaded every aspect of life, rendering him quite an unpleasant, if successful person. Gellhorn comes across as a feisty person, but we wonder precisely why she remains so attracted to Hemingway. Partly the fault lies in Clive Owen's performance; at no point does he come across as someone blessed with extraordinary creative talents. On the contrary he seems petty-minded, almost babyish. Nicole Kidman does what she can with a thankless role, but her performance remains studiously one-note. The film is at least an hour too long; it simply makes its central point about Hemingway's behavioral shortcomings over and over again. Definitely one to watch only once.

I'm surprised at the many negative comments posted here. I thought this was a superbly done film in all respects. It captures the essence of the Spanish civil war and the feel and mood of the thirties. The recreation of Frank Capra's famous (and controversial) photo was brilliant as was that of another famous photo: the abandoned child in the ruins of Nanking. The fades from black and white to colour were a neat technique that capitalizes on our memories of both the Spanish and Chinese conflicts which of necessity are based on black and white newsreels. And although it's been done before, inserting the movie's characters into actual footage of FDR and other historical figures was brilliant. The one negative --- otherwise I would have given it a 9 or even a ten --- ware the needlessly long, overly explicit and laughably acrobatic sex scenes. They cheapen an otherwise very well done film!