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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Siskiyou de Mayo ready for debut ... Ashland Creek water has high bacteria levels ... Fifth annual Ashland Empty Bowls supper Friday helps fight hunger ... Siskiyou de Mayo ready for debut ... Ashland Creek water has high bacteria levels ... Fifth annual Ashland Empty Bowls supper Friday helps fight hunger ... MOVIE REVIEW 'Papa' misses an intimate look at Hemingway Comment By Chris Honoré for Revels DailyTidings.com By Chris Honoré for Revels Posted May. 12, 2016 at 12:01 AM By Chris Honoré for Revels Posted May. 12, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Social News Papa: Hemingway in Cuba ; 1hr 49min; Rated R “Papa: Hemingway in Cuba” was the first film shot on location in Cuba since 1959, which was the year that Fidel Castro came to power. The scenery is beyond beautiful, a rainbow of colors, topaz waters and classic cars. As well, many of the interior shots are actually filmed in Hemingway’s Finca Vigia, located in Havana and now a lovingly cared-for museum, testimony to the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s prodigious talent and extraordinary life. But the promise of this film, which is never fulfilled, resides in the fact that it takes place in the late 50s (on the cusp of the Cuban revolution) when Hemingway (Adrian Sparks) is approaching his 59th birthday. He receives a letter from a young Miami Globe reporter, Ed Myers (Giovanni Ribisi), who shares with the aging writer how much his prose meant to him as a young person who had been abandoned by his father during the Depression and grew up in a Catholic orphanage. He later went on to become a journalist and war correspondent. Not unlike Hemingway. To Myers’ surprise — initially disbelief — Hemingway calls him and thanks him for the letter and invites him to come to Cuba and go fishing. While sitting on a beach with Hemingway’s fourth wife, Mary, he tells them that he has never had a family. Hemingway (who insists on being called “Papa”) says that he and Mary will be his family. It is a moment that the young journalist could only have imagined; yet, there he is, sitting on an idyllic beach with the man who had previously only gazed back at him from a book’s dust jacket and wrote words that made all the difference. What Myers could not fully comprehend — how could he? He gazed at Hemingway through a worshipful prism — was that the renowned writer was also a mean, cruel drunk, a verbally abusive husband, and increasingly paranoid (he was convinced the FBI was tailing him). He was also a man in decline. And it is that reality that is sadly missed in this film. The scaffolding of Hemingway’s life was language. Words mattered, and he wrote them sparingly and beautifully. Again and again. And this film needs long moments of exposition, such as discussion while sitting at dinner tables or bars or on a sun-swept beach. It begs for reflection. Hemingway grappled with the reality that he was no longer the man he remembered. And he seems powerless to reframe his life, to find a path into old age that he could embrace, absent the distortions created by too much booze. Instead, he sank into depression, dwelled in dark corners of regret and anger and loss and contemplated, seemingly daily, suicide (which he committed 18 months after leaving Cuba). In one scene, he puts the barrel of a gun into his mouth. This was not the man that Myers thought he was going to visit. But this was Hemingway as he approached 60. And yet the film seems unable to risk more than dwelling on Hemingway’s surface torment, absent what is behind it. Hence he says things such as, “The only value we have as human beings are the risks we’re willing to take.” What does that truly mean? What was he saying about life and about himself? Clearly, the risk Hemingway was unwilling to take was that of growing old. Which may take more courage, in the aggregate, than stepping into a bull ring with only a ceremonial cape and sword. “Papa: Hemingway in Cuba” could have been a revelation, an intimate look at the man in all of his imperfections, a man tormented by demons that formed a crucible of memories tempered by regret for all that had passed and couldn’t be changed. To my surprise, there is no mention of one of his finest and most iconic works, the elegant and beautifully written, “The Old Man and the Sea” — a book, a metaphor, triumphant and painful and his last major novel. By Chris Honoré for Revels DailyTidings.com By Chris Honoré for Revels Posted May. 12, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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