Powerful

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A biopic on the relationship between the renowned writer Ernest Hemingway and the war correspondent Martha Gellhorn. A tempestuous, on-and-off romance that spanned nine years and several war zones and a World War.Great docu-drama: Gritty, moving story.Excellent performances by Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman in the lead roles. Owen captures the reckless, live-life-to-the-fullest, abandon of Hemingway perfectly, and for once Kidman doesn't come across as prissy and pretentious. Good supporting cast which includes Robert Duvall, Parker Posey, Tony Shalhoub and David Strathairn.

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 will not be a footnote to someone else's life," says Martha Gellhorn to the camera in her face. Sadly, because of the mess of the script, no POV in the plot and scenes that go nowhere, Gellhorn actually does become a footnote to Hemmingway. I know less about her now after suffering through 2 1/2 hours than I did before. This was a Netflix waste of my time.Martha Gellhorn is an old woman recalling her life. But the film begins with how she met Hemmingway. What did she do prior to meeting Hemmingway? Her story then ends with their divorce. The rest of her life and his a brief wrap up. Well, if you don't want her to be defined by her relationship with him, why start and end with Hemmingway? And oh dear they spend way too much time drinking, smoking, dancing, partying and having sex in the Spanish Civil War. I agree with another reviewer who mocked their first sex scene while the hotel room is falling down around them during a bombing! Good grief, with her legs up in the air over his shoulders, ugh, nothing romantic or passionate about that scene at all!!! I thought the entire film was going to play out over the civil war it dragged on so long. Seemed like it would never end. Characters popped up and disappeared with no explanation.Meanwhile it's one mind-numbing war is hell scene after another,("If it's Tuesday this must be Belgium?"), with no time in between to breathe and rest and know about their lives. I get it, they were war correspondents. But what else did they do with their lives? Their life together? If they didn't mention Hemmingway's famous novels you'd never know what he wrote during their brief time together. Ultimately I didn't care about either of these people. The performances were really hard to take. You could see them acting not living these characters. However, considering the dialog they had, well, what else could they do? When Gellhorn first meets Hemmingway in that bar, Clive, trying to be tough guy charming, nearly began to sound like Bogart! Ugh. This one just got away from everyone. I don't know whose fault it was, the writers, the director (oh those auteur changes!?)or the producers, but I think it's safe to say there's plenty of blame to spread around.Two thumbs down as Ebert and Roper would say.

My review title illustrates Martha Gellhorn's persistent complaint that her lifetime achievements as a war correspondent and writer merited more historical notoriety than simply being Hemingway's third wife. The title should have Gellhorn's name first, as the film begins and ends with her, without Hemingway. She outlived him by nearly 40 years, and thus had plenty of time to reflect on the significance of their time together. As Gellhorn notes: "A battlefield neither of us could survive was domestic life".(at least, together). They were too much alike in some ways, and yet different in some important ways, for their relationship to last forever. Gellhorn wrote that they were really afraid of each other, each being potentially the most violent person the other knew. Hemingway, being nearly a decade older and much better known by the public when they met, the relationship was bound to deteriorate as Gellman matured from a surrogate daughter and comrade in arms to being a true competitor of Hemingway in terms of taking on dangerous foreign adventures. Nonetheless, at the end of the film, where Gellman makes an imaginary phone call to a long deceased Hemingway, she grudgingly admits some debt to his influence on her life's work in the last line of the film "You're not dead yet, you f---."While the screenplay is mainly limited to the time when Gellhorn and Hemingway interacted with each other, the last portion skips ahead to the last weeks of Hemingway's life, when he's a chronically depressed white -haired old man of 61, undergoing ineffective ghastly electroshock treatments(which I was unaware of), before shooting himself as soon as he got back home. The near catatonic characterization of Hemingway at this time is probably an exaggeration. Just before his suicide, he mouths part of the speech he sent to Stockholm relating to his Nobel Prize, lamenting the typical fate of aging writers. Shortly before this segment, Hemingway is shown choosing to let his fishing line unravel when he hooks a marlin. This implies that he suddenly lost his will to deal with challenging situations and his ability to write effectively: a rather gross exaggeration of the truth. In fact, he continued to write prodigiously, even when seriously ill near the end of his life, and made a '54 trip to Africa. While dramatizing Gellman's activities on and shortly after D-day, the film ignores Hemingway's simultaneous post- D-Day-related activities. Hemingway's severe injuries from several plane accidents and development of several chronic health problems, which much contributed to his depressed state in his last decade, are ignored. The film ends with an unsuccessful attempt by reporters to get an aged Gellman to talk about Hemingway, followed by her imaginary phone conversion with the deceased, then with her exit for yet another foreign adventure.Nicole Kidman was fantastic as Gellhorn: occasionally romantic, but mostly hard-bitten and cynical with age, as a woman who led her chosen life would almost have to be. Gellhorn wrote that she didn't really enjoy sex and, in the film's beginning, says she was undoubtedly a very poor bed partner, that not being where her true passion lay. Hence, all the lovemaking scenes are initiated by Hemingway, often with a resisting Gellman.Clive Owen, as Hemingway, was a much less perfect fit, but still acceptable, for the most part. The details of their relationship and activities during this period apparently were carefully researched, according to the commentary by the director on my DVD copy. Frequent intermittent nesting of the principle actors into archival film footage relating to the various war zones gave an additional perception of authenticity. The frequent switching between B&W, semi-color and full color, which annoys some viewers, helped distinguish the past from the present, and nested archival footage from current scenes. Several lyrics to the tune for "Red River Valley" serves as the running theme song.The scene in which Hemmingway challenges Robert Duvall, as the Russian general, to a modified Russian roulette duel, is interesting. Each grasps the end of the same kerchief in the teeth and circle each other, as each holds a pistol to their head. The point of this bizarre ritual is not apparent before they are convinced to end it and hug each other. Could this represent a foreshadowing of the future Cold War, with nuclear arsenals being represented by the pistols? The initiation and termination of their intense relationship is symbolized by an adversarial conversation through her locked or partially open hotel room door, although their relationship actually began or effectively was terminated prior to these incidents.Their first sexual encounter is a very dramatic scene , as they writhe in ecstasy while the Madrid hotel room they occupy is gradually being destroyed by shock waves from fascist aerial bombs. Hemingway massages plaster dust from the crumbling ceiling over Gellhorn's skin. How many first sexual encounters are this dramatic? Later, as the two are backstage, waiting for Hemingway to be called out to introduce a documentary on the plight of Spanish peasants, he impulsively initiates standup sex with Gellhorn. Perhaps he hoped this would enhance his confidence in his speech, as is thought to have happened with JFK in his first presidential debate with Nixon. Gellhorn then makes a better follow up speech, but is ignored by the press.