Review of The Sun Also Rises

The genius of Hemingway's novel is that the narrator naively and gradually reveals what a bunch of self centered, talentless, bigoted bunch of losers his central characters were. Their drinking was not so much angst as superannuated college kids on a binge. Now, some eighty years later, Robert Cohn comes across as the best of them. He cared, he loved, and he was the only successful one of them.

How do you make a movie about such unattractive characters?. Would you ask top stars to play contemptible people? The characterizations of the leads were all compromises; Lady Brett becomes a misty romantic, not a rather dull, dumb lost woman (as in the book). Given only empty stereotypes to portray, the actor's performances ring hollow and purposeless. The characters played by Errol Flynn and Eddie Albert were not written with any characterizations at all, thus allowing the actors to do colorful shticks.

Nevertheless, the atmosphere was good. The story moves. Minor characters are well done. The movie is Hemingway, but Hemingway lite. Mel Ferrer was good; he should have had a bigger role. His character, Robert Cohn was a contrast to all the rest of the characters. This works in the book, but hardly existed in the film