Hemingway & Gellhorn

The movie builds a persuasive case for the trailblazing Gellhorn, who worked while Hemingway played. She didn't see herself as a footnote in his life, and this enjoyable movie makes sure she isn't.

It may be too much to ask for a TV movie based on historical personages with such tumultuous lives to show some restraint. Then again, "too much" isn't a bad way to sum up the problems of Hemingway & Gellhorn.

Kidman manages quietly to evoke something else of this ferocious, aging journalist -- an underlying and unsettling degree of disappointment and hurt.

Kidman's Gellhorn, who periodically narrates the story from the future, reflects that they were "good together in war" and had no idea what to do without it. Neither, in a way, does the film

Kidman practically swaggers through the role, channeling Lauren Bacall to such a degree that I almost expected her to ask co-star Clive Owen if he knows how to whistle.

Though it is clearly based on research, with dialogue that scavenges the principals' own writing, it is never quite believable, either as history or drama.

Hemingway & Gellhorn, for all its awkwardness as historical drama, is never less than interesting to watch, and sometimes captivating.

Hemingway and Gellhorn couldn't have more wrong with it if it tried. And that's tragic because it does one thing -- and one thing only -- so very right that it deserves to be seen... Rescuing Martha Gellhorn from a pitiable damnation of history.

Despite this narrative unevenness, Stahl and Turner's sharp, literary script -- buoyed by Kidman and Owen's stellar turns -- keeps Hemingway & Gellhorn afloat.

It features passionate love scenes, intense images of violence and heart-wrenching emotional moments. It's also often painfully melodramatic and hopelessly predictable despite depicting a (mostly) true story.