THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701250051
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E7 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: 66 lines
IF NOTHING else, Richard Attenborough's $40 million production of ``In Love and War'' proves that the Hemingway myth still exists. Cynics are likely to readily dismiss it as mushy stuff starring two Hollywood pin-ups. Others, though, may well embrace the fantasy with the desperation of an age in which heroes are difficult to find, and literary heroes are just about nonexistent.
``In Love and War'' is an old-fashioned movie in which the music (composed by George Fenton) swells to let us know how we should feel, a cast of thousands marches to war in front of breathtaking Technicolor landscapes, and passion wins over logic.
On July 8, 1918, two weeks before his 19th birthday, Ernie Hemingway, a Red Cross volunteer truck driver in World War I, was shot in the leg while carrying a wounded soldier to safety. During his five-month convalescence in an Italian hospital, he fell in love with a 26-year-old American nurse named Agnes von Kurowsky.
She called him ``Kid'' and felt she was much too old for him, but eventually she accepted his proposal of marriage. She later had a change of heart and rejected him to marry an Italian aristocrat. The kid goes on to become the world's most famous writer and uses an idealistic version of her as the basis for Catherine Barkley, one of the most romantic heroines of all American fiction, in his 1929 novel ``A Farewell to Arms.''
This is the stuff of which literary legend is made, and legends are perfect for movies. Yes, it's difficult to believe that Chris O'Donnell would ever grow up to become Ernest Hemingway, but youth, and time, have a way of distancing themselves. After all, what was Sigmund Freud like as a child? Or Mother Theresa? Probably not beings one would have suspected to turn out as they did.
Casting Sandra Bullock as Agnes is a bit foolhardy, even if she does probably long to change her image. Bullock is our image of tomboyish, girl-next-door modernity. To see her in these costumes almost causes one to giggle. Also, there is little chemistry between Bullock and O'Donnell. They act much as if they were older sister and younger brother.
Still, isn't that the point? These two were never right for each other.
The reason this film can be accepted is that it's not about true love. It's about idealized love, and that may be a long way from truth in many of our lives - and, quite believably, in Hemingway's.
Attenborough is a director who is adept at coaching actors to suggest past true-life myths. He was effective with Simon Ward in ``Young Winston,'' Ben Kingsley in ``Gandhi'' and even Robert Downey Jr. in ``Chaplin.'' He's not as lucky with O'Donnell as Hemingway but he doesn't have to be. The distance, and foolishness, of youth saves the film.
Besides all that, the photography is superb and the music is grandiose. Most winningly, it's an old-fashioned movie - the kind they don't often make today because they think we won't ``believe'' it.
``In Love and War'' is as much of another age as it is about one. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by NEW LINE CINEMA
Chris O'Donnell and Sandra Bullock seem a bit miscast for ``In Love
and War.''
MOVIE REVIEW
``In Love and War''
Cast: Chris O'Donnell, Sandra Bullock, Mackenzie Astin
Director: Richard Attenborough
Music: George Fenton
MPAA rating: PG-13 (wartime violence, some language)
Mal's rating: 3 stars