Papa Hemingway in Cuba (2015)

good back-story, and good acting

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Watching this movie, it occured to me how very slender Hemingway's output really was. In short story output -- short stories being his main event -- writers like Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike surpass him in quality and output. They, however, shunned the spotlight although they did get their share of it

I really wanted to like this film as I am a Hemingway fan like many people. I read a few reviews that trashed the film and then I came across one that said "I don't know why all the bad reviews" and that was enough for me to download a check it out. The film started OK. I like Ribisi (Sneaky Pete)and Minka Kelly is simply beautiful but from there it goes down hill. If they had shown Cuba (ala Woody Allen New York/Rome/Paris etc) it would have been more watchable but they didn't and it wasn't.The acting. Oh my goodness, to say it was wooden would be the understatement of the 21st century. The worst of the bunch is the guy that plays Hemingway. I've never seen or heard Hemingway in real life but I can't imagine he was the passionless bore he seemed to be. Maybe not a fair criticism but I like the way Hemingway was portrayed in Midnight in Paris. Halfway or so through the film, there is a get together and a confrontation of sorts between EH and his wife...here is where you get bad acting at it's finest. Ribisi seemed out of place but I believe that is more a product of a poorly written story than his skill set.The story. How bad is it? Let me count the ways. Never mind, I have better things to do. How this is rated above "3" is beyond me.

I'm baffled by the hostility of many professional critics to this film. (The user, or amateur, reviewers are much more accurate, fair, knowledgeable and balanced. I'm finding this is true with user book reviews also. The amateur reviewers often know much more, care more, and are less biased about the subject than the professional reviewers.) I think the reason that so many professional critics did not like this film is because in liberal circles today Hemingway is very much out of fashion, and looked down upon. He is 'politically incorrect' now. Also Hemingway is not nearly as popular and well known today as was the case from 1930 to 1965.If you know about and like this famous author, as I do, this is the film for you. The stage actor, Adrian Sparks, who plays Hemingway nails the author's look, mannerisms, ideas, and even the sound of his voice. The film captures perfectly Hemingway's relationship with his prickly last wife, Mary, his mental state and concerns, and his relationship with friends, in the late 1950s period in Cuba, all per the historical record. And an added treat is that the film was made in Cuba at Hemingway's actual home, and favorite bar, the Floridita. The director may have even used the author's actual fishing boat the 'Pilar', which used to be kept at the Finca Vigia Estate after the author's death. If not it was a very close replica right down to the black hull. Also I thought screenwriter Denne Petitclerc's, a friend of the Hemingways, script was accurate, honest, inclusive, intelligent, well done, and thoughtful.

With Papa and Mary Hemingway, I had the same reservations that I had with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo--they were all drunks. A drunk is never charming, fun, witty, intelligent, or genius. They are just drunks! "Papa: Ernest Hemingway in Cuba", records the time 1959 just before the Fidel Castro Revolution. Ernest Hemingway is a gun runner and evades the Cuban Police by throwing his guns overboard.Boston Globe Journalist Denne Bart Petitclerc writes a fan letter to Hemingway and is befriended by Hemingway and invited down to Cuba. He probably learns more of Ernest and Mary Hemingway than he wanted to know.But by this time in Cuba, Hemingway's paranoia leads him to believe people are out to harm the 59 year old Hemingway who by now is drinking to excess, is engaging in suicidal ideation with his gun, can no longer write, can no longer have sex, and suffering the effects of alcohol abuse.While the movie is ostensibly about Papa Hemingway, the movie is also about Denne Bart Petitclerc who had been raised as an orphan during the Great Depression. So in Papa, a name he was called by everyone, Denne Bart Petitclerc has found a new surrogate Papa. And this Papa doesn't hesitate to slug Denne when learns that Denne had been seen speaking to Mafioso Santo Trafficanti. And Denne ends up in the middle of the drunken arguments of Mary and Ernest Hemingway. Worse, he has to wrestle a gun from Papa, who is about to commit suicide with it. Denne leaves Cuba and discovers that his wife has left him for his excessive devotion to Papa that takes him away from her. And Denne has to decide what is more important: a drunk, self-destructive, finished artist or his wife. There is no resolution in the film and the viewer is left to wonder what happened to his marital relationship. (Outside sources say Denne went in 1960 to Ketchum Idaho and stayed there till his death in 2006.)At the end of the movie, the print over announces that Hemingway committed suicide (with his shotgun) in Ketchum, Idaho in 1961--at aged 61.The movie was fast paced with an aura of realism to it. Denne wrote a story about the friendship and was preparing a movie script before he died of lung cancer in 2006, age 77. (Smoking the other bête noire of abuse.) For anyone who is fan of Hemingway, this sheds an interesting perspective of the writer at the end of his creative life and his life.