This film gets so much of Hemingway's novel right, but it's still necessary to point out the major flaws. After all, Hemingway spent years on this novel, and the greatly edited version that was eventually published (for good or bad) was a serious ground-breaker.
The theme of wife Catherine wanting to game-play reverse gender role--- pretending to be the man and calling her husband "girl" were critical themes in this novel of perversity. They take the walk-on-eggshells approach in the film, except for a few words during sex, they get identical unisex hair jobs, and that's about as far as it goes.
Wife Catherine's creation of a three-way sexual affair -- bringing an extra girl into their marriage as a gift for her husband -- is handled more completely. What is missing is to make you feel how very much this man loves his bride, how he accepts these perversions to please her (a normal man, even a tomcat like myself, would actually NOT want a spare woman, even a beautiful one, in his marriage) the perversions will sadly erode his love for the woman he loved before he knew her so well.
Two strong plus marks: This is the first and only Hemingway movie to reflect the frequent and heavy drinking in his novels. Second, is for the choice of the actress playing Catherine. Not a conventional beauty I'd say, and her face might be called funny-looking; but as she played Catherine she quietly radiated the intense sexuality of the character. I was wanting her maybe 90 seconds into the movie. Sure, this happens once in a while; not often to this degree. Hemingway made the reader feel the husband's both love and passion beyond a shadow of a doubt.
This was obviously an important personal statement by Hemingway. He wanted to convey these sexual perversions were not "cool" things to brag about to the guys; but rather sad and tragic revelations about the unraveling of love in the circumstance described. The movie fails at this; Hem's central point.
The theme of wife Catherine wanting to game-play reverse gender role--- pretending to be the man and calling her husband "girl" were critical themes in this novel of perversity. They take the walk-on-eggshells approach in the film, except for a few words during sex, they get identical unisex hair jobs, and that's about as far as it goes.
Wife Catherine's creation of a three-way sexual affair -- bringing an extra girl into their marriage as a gift for her husband -- is handled more completely. What is missing is to make you feel how very much this man loves his bride, how he accepts these perversions to please her (a normal man, even a tomcat like myself, would actually NOT want a spare woman, even a beautiful one, in his marriage) the perversions will sadly erode his love for the woman he loved before he knew her so well.
Two strong plus marks: This is the first and only Hemingway movie to reflect the frequent and heavy drinking in his novels. Second, is for the choice of the actress playing Catherine. Not a conventional beauty I'd say, and her face might be called funny-looking; but as she played Catherine she quietly radiated the intense sexuality of the character. I was wanting her maybe 90 seconds into the movie. Sure, this happens once in a while; not often to this degree. Hemingway made the reader feel the husband's both love and passion beyond a shadow of a doubt.
This was obviously an important personal statement by Hemingway. He wanted to convey these sexual perversions were not "cool" things to brag about to the guys; but rather sad and tragic revelations about the unraveling of love in the circumstance described. The movie fails at this; Hem's central point.