Papa: Hemingway in Cuba

A film that is beautiful to look at but lacks clear vision.

In the end, it's a museum piece: even the drunken screaming matches between Hemingway and his wife feel staged.

As the first U.S. film shot in Cuba since Castro came to power in 1959, Papa gives us sights to revel in. Oddly, what hurts is the clunky, overripe script.

"Papa" is merely cinema at its dullest, a perfunctory assemblage of biographical bullet points in which characters explain their lives rather than live them.

Richardson deserves better. Hemingway certainly deserves better. And so does the audience.

Ms. Richardson comforts and coaxes and exasperatedly, bitingly demeans, but she and Mr. Sparks play past each other instead of engaging.

If the viewer were to base him- or herself on the Hemingway represented in Yari's Papa ... he or she would likely never open a single volume of Hemingway's writing.

We never get a sense of what we're supposed to gain here.

The actors do their best, but the plodding, unimaginative direction reduces the film to a dull docu-drama,

Papa: Hemingway in Cuba is a stunning portrait of one of the greatest authors and storytellers of the 20th century.