Marvel Comics used to have a series called "What If
?" The premise of it was stories that took an established bit of Marvel continuity (or comic book history, for you non-fanboys) and changed it. "What If
Doctor Doom rescued his mother from Mephisto?" "What if
Uncle Ben never died?" "What If
The Mole Man tried Match.com?" Well, this film is basically "What If
Ernest Hemingway wrote an episode of Red Shoe Diaries?" For those unfamiliar, RSD was the title of a 1990s erotica anthology on HBO where David Duchovny played a man who lost his love and coped with it by reading letters from people about their own sexual experiences. It was the age when cable TV brought softcore porn to the masses and before the internet did the same for the hard stuff. This movie feels like a relic of that era because the emotional drama is so forced and underdeveloped that there's no value to it except in seeing pretty people stripped down and simulating intercourse. And while Jack Huston, Mena Suvari and Caterina Maura are attractive enough to satisfy all comers, there aren't nearly enough sex scenes here to fit that bill. I mean, the story has a lesbian encounter that's left entirely off camera. So, the better question for these filmmakers is not "What If
?" It's "What the hell!?!?"
David Bourne (Jack Huston) is an American WWI veteran living in Paris after the war. He's a writer currently between novels when he meets, falls in love with and quickly marries the wealthy and daring Catherine Hill (Mena Suvari). They fart around Europe for a while on their honeymoon, Catherine demonstrating a controlling and manipulative nature that should have sent David running for the hills, until they settle in a sea side hotel in Spain for the summer. That's where David starts to work on another book and Catherine drags the lovely and tempting Marita (Caterina Murino) into the mix, clearly intent on forging some sort of polyamourous union among the three. David, being a relatively proper gentleman of the 1920s instead of a jaded dude of the 21st century, balks at either he or Catherine cavorting with their continental bit of fluff. Then the film diverges into scenes from David's new novel about elephant hunting with his father (Matthew Modine) as the three-way tryst turns out exactly how Catherine self-destructively desired.
I'll leave it to others as to whether this thing is a good and faithful adaptation of Hemingway's novel. I doubt it is, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the film itself. On that score, Garden of Eden is a disappointment. It is not poorly directed or acted. The story is simply so shallow and dated that it gives you nothing except a diversion of sex and nudity. And as I mentioned, there's not enough of that. David is terminally passive. Catherine is practically a Jazz Age caricature. Marita, when she's understandable through her accent, is nothing more than an object of affection passed between the Bournes. The story's attitude toward and handling of things reminds me of Eyes Wide Shut in that not only is it old fashioned sexually, but it feels like the people telling the story don't comprehend how quaint and behind the times it is. Nothing that happens here is going to be shocking or provocative to anyone post-puberty in this day and age. That doesn't necessarily make the tale unviable, but it has to affect the way it's told. This film does nothing to define the conventions of its time, how they were challenged by the cultural malaise of post-WWI society or the way that era relates to our own. There's no meat to Hemingway's Garden of Eden. There are only handsome bones.
That narrative lack is best illustrated when things turn to David's story about he as a boy and his father in Africa. The story had sat there doing nothing for so long on the screen that I was initially bewildered by the shift to images of a great white hunter and son on an elephant-hunting expedition. Those scenes are so much more focused and direct and clear in what they're trying to do dramatically and emotionally, they make the rest of the movie all the more pale and wan.
Now, if there had been a lesbian scene between Suvari and Murino and a full blown menage a trois to top everything off, this would have been like an overly long but passable edition of Red Shoe Diaries. Fine for what it is, if you're into that. The absence of those obvious scenes leads me to conclude the makers of Hemingway's Garden of Eden fancied they were making a legitimate motion picture and not softcore smut. They and any viewers would have been better off if their intentions had been less lofty and more crude. This is stuck in that no man's land where it's not good enough to be taken seriously and not trashy enough to be enjoyed frivolously. Either read the book or watch something else.
David Bourne (Jack Huston) is an American WWI veteran living in Paris after the war. He's a writer currently between novels when he meets, falls in love with and quickly marries the wealthy and daring Catherine Hill (Mena Suvari). They fart around Europe for a while on their honeymoon, Catherine demonstrating a controlling and manipulative nature that should have sent David running for the hills, until they settle in a sea side hotel in Spain for the summer. That's where David starts to work on another book and Catherine drags the lovely and tempting Marita (Caterina Murino) into the mix, clearly intent on forging some sort of polyamourous union among the three. David, being a relatively proper gentleman of the 1920s instead of a jaded dude of the 21st century, balks at either he or Catherine cavorting with their continental bit of fluff. Then the film diverges into scenes from David's new novel about elephant hunting with his father (Matthew Modine) as the three-way tryst turns out exactly how Catherine self-destructively desired.
I'll leave it to others as to whether this thing is a good and faithful adaptation of Hemingway's novel. I doubt it is, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the film itself. On that score, Garden of Eden is a disappointment. It is not poorly directed or acted. The story is simply so shallow and dated that it gives you nothing except a diversion of sex and nudity. And as I mentioned, there's not enough of that. David is terminally passive. Catherine is practically a Jazz Age caricature. Marita, when she's understandable through her accent, is nothing more than an object of affection passed between the Bournes. The story's attitude toward and handling of things reminds me of Eyes Wide Shut in that not only is it old fashioned sexually, but it feels like the people telling the story don't comprehend how quaint and behind the times it is. Nothing that happens here is going to be shocking or provocative to anyone post-puberty in this day and age. That doesn't necessarily make the tale unviable, but it has to affect the way it's told. This film does nothing to define the conventions of its time, how they were challenged by the cultural malaise of post-WWI society or the way that era relates to our own. There's no meat to Hemingway's Garden of Eden. There are only handsome bones.
That narrative lack is best illustrated when things turn to David's story about he as a boy and his father in Africa. The story had sat there doing nothing for so long on the screen that I was initially bewildered by the shift to images of a great white hunter and son on an elephant-hunting expedition. Those scenes are so much more focused and direct and clear in what they're trying to do dramatically and emotionally, they make the rest of the movie all the more pale and wan.
Now, if there had been a lesbian scene between Suvari and Murino and a full blown menage a trois to top everything off, this would have been like an overly long but passable edition of Red Shoe Diaries. Fine for what it is, if you're into that. The absence of those obvious scenes leads me to conclude the makers of Hemingway's Garden of Eden fancied they were making a legitimate motion picture and not softcore smut. They and any viewers would have been better off if their intentions had been less lofty and more crude. This is stuck in that no man's land where it's not good enough to be taken seriously and not trashy enough to be enjoyed frivolously. Either read the book or watch something else.