As TV movies go, this version of "The Sun Also Rises" isn't the worst. However, the liberties taken with Hemingway's work were both unnecessary and destructive. Oh, did I mention the acting is terrible? Jane Seymour, as Brett, tries her very hardest, and it shows, but it's not enough: she's just not talented enough to slog through dialogue this bad and retain a modicum of grace (and let's not talk much about the "period" costumes, OK? Not every woman of the 20's dressed like an Arabian vampire with black turbans, alright?). Hart Bochner, on the other hand, is in every way jarringly unconvincing. He's too young, too matinee-idol-ish, to portray depressed, self-destructive, castrated veteran Jake Barnes. I admit to having missed the beginning, as I saw it on TV - did they cut out the fact that he was wounded that way? Omissions like that, changes to such a well-known work of great literature as "Sun," would seem to be heretical, but once you've heard Hemingway's subtle and sparing dialogue dismissed for more obvious tripe, and the few great, memorable lines from the book - "isn't it pretty to think so?" "Send a woman off with one man . . . and sign the wire 'with love.'" - hopelessly destroyed by Bochner's wooden speech and expressions, nothing will ever seem shocking again. Entire lifelines are altered to further banish subtlety, most shockingly Bill's (didn't love his sitcom acting style either), but also to a small extent Cohn's, Romero's, and even Jake's.
Not a complete waste of time, but if you love the book, then each mistake, omission, alteration, and Bochner-ed line will make you cringe. Just read the novel, and forget this.
Not a complete waste of time, but if you love the book, then each mistake, omission, alteration, and Bochner-ed line will make you cringe. Just read the novel, and forget this.