IN LOVE AND WAR
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
Can a film be saved by its music? This is the question that I was pondering during the press screening for the plodding adaptation of the non-fiction book "Hemingway in Love and War: The Lost Diary of Agnes Von Kurowsky." Directed by the great Richard Attenborough (GANDHI, CRY FREEDOM and SHADOWLANDS), the film is called IN LOVE AND WAR and stars heartthrobs Sandra Bullock as nurse Agnes von Kurowsky and Chris O'Donnell as Ernest Hemingway, who was one of her wartime lovers.
The music by four-time Academy Award nominee George Fenton (THE FISHER KING, DANGEROUS LIAISONS, CRY FREEDOM, and GANDHI) is on a grand scale. Outdoor scenes have majestic sounds full of horns and worthy of a vast symphony. In interior scenes we are treated to intimate violin serenades. Every scene is filled with intense musical emotion. Ah, but then there are those actors. Maybe they should have heard the score during the shooting.
Perhaps the most charitable thing that can be said of the two leads is that they were miscast. Certainly the performances they deliver are so insubstantial that they almost vanish upon closer examination. The love story between them is convincing in spurts, but, for the most part, the chemistry does not work. Even less effective, and never believable is Agnes's romance with the Italian Doctor Domenico Caracciolo (Emilio Bonucci).
The story is set in Italy in 1918. The American Red Cross has come to help with the Italian wounded as Italy is overrun by the Austrian army. Since Hemingway is too young and has a bad eye, he is rejected by our military. He signs on to help the Red Cross and, of course, asks for duty near the front and for a rifle. He gets the former but not the latter. Within hours he is wounded, and he spends most of the movie convalescing in the hospital. It is there that he meets Agnes. Much is made of their age difference, he being 19 and she being all of 26, but they look about the same age in the movie so that is one of many aspects of the picture that were never believable. The show talks a lot about age differences, but the actions ignore them.
"You know what I've been told?" remarks Agnes in one of the first scenes. "Italian men respect their wives. They spoil their mistresses. But the only women they love are their mothers." This is a prelude to the time when the "old" Italian doctor will make a play for her. "It won't work," Hemingway argues. "Take a look. He's ancient. He must be close to 40."
The cinematography by Roger Pratt is handsome and warm, but the picture is content to be little more than pleasant. It is never involving. Since I did not care about the characters, I resented some of the manipulative parts of the story. For example, as they play poker in the hospital, the sickest of them, Jimmy McBride (Ian Kelly), gets a bad hand, but taking no cards declares, "I always play the hand I'm dealt." Agnes and Ernest then rig it so that Jimmy wins.
The love story between Agnes and Ernest is more hinted at than shown. The two best scenes in the movie are when she slaps him and when he fondles her ankle because these are some of the few occasions when the actors come out of their shells. I like love affairs that are believable and not ethereal. They do not have to be at all explicit to be great, see, for example, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, but they must have enough emotional involvement to be convincing.
The script is by Allan Scott, Clancy Sigal, Hamilton Phelan, and Henry S. Villard and is based on the story by Allan Scott and Dimitri Villard, which in turn is based on the book by Henry S. Villard and James Nagel. Any time you get this many people involved it is a recipe for disaster. Perhaps this is the reason the story skims the surface and never invites you to go deeper. Next to the miscasting of the leads, the script is the second biggest problem with the film.
Then there are the endings. There are at least four natural ending points, in each of which the story would then pick back us and show what happens next in their lives. For a while I thought the film was never going to end and that it was a special test version to see how long a dozen film critics would sit there in a dark room watching ending after ending before they gave up and left. We all stayed through the four, but a couple more and I might have been tempted to leave.
At least toward the end, we do have a cheery note. Ernest's friend Henry Villard (MacKenzie Astin) tells us that, "Older people start aging backwards at some point." I'll keep an eye on my watch waiting for that blessed event.
"I love you," says Agnes to Ernest. "I'll love you as long as I live." I wanted and expected to feel that way about this film, but I could not. To answer the question I asked in the beginning, perhaps some films can be saved by the music, but not this one.
IN LOVE AND WAR runs 1:55. It is rated PG-13 for war wounds and for sexual situations, but no sex or nudity. I do not remember any profanity, but there probably was a little. The film would be fine for kids say ten and up. It is a close call, but I find the film too mediocre to recommend. I give it **.
**** = A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = Totally and painfully unbearable picture.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: January 20, 1997
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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