After a spectacular fishing expedition and the grandiose ceremony following at Sloppy Joe's Bar in Key West, Ernest Hemingway is introduced to the eager journalist Martha Gellhorn. Both are taken by the plight of the loyalists fighting Franco's fascist in the Spanish Civil War, so they both head out for Madrid where they cover the conflict on the front lines and embark on a stormy and passionate love affair. "Hemingway & Gellhorn" is an expansive HBO movie from director Philip Kaufman that plays like a cacophony of his two best works: the epic and often humorous tones found in "The Right Stuff" and the steamy and sensuous masterial found in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" With superb performances from Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman, the filmmakers not only capture the larger than life, live it to the fullest essence of Hemingway but also that of the lesser known Gellhorn who determines to blaze her own trail and, as she puts it, refuses to be a footnote in someone else's life. "Hemingway and Gellhorn" is a richly developed, multi-faceted entertainment that greatly captures two lives, and the kind of film that would have until recently been thought of impossible to be made for television.
