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"Hemingway's Garden of Eden" - If This Is Eden, Get Out Fast

Roselle Chen |
December 10, 2010 | 2:13 p.m. PST

Senior Entertainment Editor

Hemingway's Garden of Eden (Roadside Attractions)
Hemingway's Garden of Eden (Roadside Attractions)
There's one scene in "Hemingway's Garden of Eden," directed by John Irvin, that starts off with so much promise.

Catherine (Mena Suvari) and David (Jack Huston) first see each other from across the room.

She struts over to David and puts an unlit cigarette in her mouth. She looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to light it.

Instead he takes it from her mouth, puts it in his, lights the cigarette and smokes it. She’s surprised and interested.

He hands her back her cigarette and with that, they start their whirlwind journey together as husband and wife.

It’s also the end of the only salvageable part to an incredibly bad movie.

Mena Suvari and Jack Huston were miscast. Suvari plays a sultry, bored heiress who funds David’s life as a writer, but her acting as a temptress wasn’t convincing. Victoria’s Secret commercials are more moving.

Jack Huston’s character lays there like a lump while his wife manipulates their life together. She cuts her hair shorter and shorter, exploring gender boundaries and role playing as a man in bed.

It’s a shame because Huston is spectacular in HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.” And though he plays completely different characters between the TV show and the movie, the blandness he evokes in “Hemingway’s Garden of Eden” doesn’t match his depth as an actor.

The film’s adaptation, written by former editor of The Paris Review James Scott Linville, is faithful enough to the plot of Ernest Hemingway’s semi-autobiographical novel “Garden of Eden,” which follows American newlyweds David Bourne and Catherine on their honeymoon in the French Riviera.

Set in the Jazz Age era, David and Catherine go from town to town searching for the perfect summer home to settle in, have a lot of sex in between, and finally set their sights on a beachside house in La Napoule, near Cannes.

Catherine shops during the day while David writes his new novel, based on their love story. She gets increasingly restless while he’s immersed in his work and brings home an Italian girl they saw in town named Marita (Caterina Murino).

Catherine forces Marita onto David and they eventually share sleeping with him on different days of the week.

David’s loss of innocence in the bedroom is symbolized with a new story he starts behind Catherine’s back on his life as a boy in Africa.

The movie juxtaposes Catherine’s games and eventual cruelty with his memories of poachers killing an elephant he tracked, and later condemned to death.

Caterina Murino is also underutilized. Her dark, expressive eyes show more in a glance than the sappy script does in two hours. She’s depicted as a Hemingway groupie, but she could be so much more than that.

At the end of it all, you’ll feel nothing more than a slight disgust for each of the characters.

The movie is a slap in the face to Hemingway's subtle words and intricate meanings, and instead is a tacky Danielle Steele novel putrefied on screen.

Reach Roselle here.
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