A Clean Well Lighted Place

"In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dull and know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused."
-Ernest Hemingway

Richard Attenborough's In Love and War is the type of movie that when it ends you ask yourself, "that was all very nice and all but what exactly was the point?" Yet the feeling may actually be oddly appropriate since in both love and war once they are over, one is often left asking one's self, "what the hell was that all about?" So it is a quiet, well lit, contemplative movie with not a lot of action, little memorable dialogue, yet touching at times and certainly more earnest than your average Hollywood movie.

The movie stars Chris O'Donnell as a young Ernest Hemingway seeking adventure and experience in war torn Italy, and Sandra Bullock as Agnes Von Kurowsky, a Red Cross nurse who cares for Hemingway after the yet to be famous writer is shot in the leg. There is a warning early on that this movie may have a few cracks in its simple structure. Before the opening scene we get the dreaded "based on a true story" (as if there is any other kind). Herein lies the problem of the movie. Since most viewers will begin with some kind of preconceived notion of Papa Hemingway, O'Donnell's attempts to portray a yet to be formed brash and cocky Hemingway somehow don't work or don't offer the insight one expects. Take away that and all that is left is a common love story, one which is not terribly romantic or memorable. We never really see any of the passion or whatever it is that attracts O'Donnell and Bullock to each other.

The story suggests that it was this relationship and the events surrounding it that helped form the harder edged Hemingway, forever coloring his personality and his writing. By his written accounts, Hemingway in the middle of all the destruction, pain and suffering found his comforting soul mate who changed the unchangeable while at the same time returning him to his old self nursing him back to health. He wrote that while far from the familiar, she felt like she had been around forever yet at the same time felt so refreshing and new, helping him return to his foundation, an anchor in the turbulent storm. Haunted by a trip taken as real as the scar on his wounded leg, by her presence turned absence, the writer transformed his love from the tangible one in front of him somehow never to be touched, to just another tragic character in another story. In the movie this merely translates into being portrayed as a believer of the rather standard notion that a writer is to suffer for his art while also showing that there are some things one should be willing to die for. One of the movie's strengths is in showing the war's horror, which is faithfully conveyed in one frightening battle scene, and later on in the personal sufferings of those involved.

But the depth of Hemingway's eternal feelings for Von Kurowsky certainly aren't conveyed in movie. O'Donnell instead emotes what looks like a school boy crush on his nurse. Bullock seems bemused by his alternating bravado and boyish enthusiasm. The viewer is asked to make the jump internally, to accept that this colorful young reporter became the brooding but often times masterful writer. And because that isn't the easiest jump to make, one begins to wonder that if this story wasn't about Hemingway would there be anything that worthwhile to watch? Yet it is a good looking movie, easy on the eyes. Attenborough is able to use the beautiful Italian countryside as an effective backdrop to the courtship and flirtation.

For Bullock it is another in a growing string of diverse roles. She gives a quiet yet charismatic performance, creating a portrait of a woman both nurturing and independent. It is through this performance that her lasting power is beginning to show. Rather than playing the nurse as the young plucky heroine type, she gives a more distinguished, dignified reading. While her appeal remains her down to earth charm and sense of humor, this role shows it is possible she will grow to play something other than the youthful "star." This is someone whose movies are worth waiting for, one to grow old with.