Review: Across the River and Into the Trees – “A fine film, elevated with solid performances”

In 1950, Ernest Hemingway published the novel, Across the River and Into the Trees.  Apparently, Tennessee Williams said it was ‘the saddest novel in the world.’  But, it came under criticism, receiving mostly negative reviews at the time.  Perhaps it was just that more was expected of Hemingway, but despite its poor reception, it still spent 7 weeks atop the New York Times bestseller list.  Director Paula Ortiz clearly found enough inspiration in writer Peter Flannery’s adaptation of the novel to bring it to the big screen.  

Yet there are problematic elements to this story that were perhaps not front of mind seventy years ago.  The book and film are set in post World War II Italy and follows Colonel Richard Cantwell (Liev Schreiber) who is diagnosed with a terminal heart condition.  He refuses hospitalization and treatment.  Instead, he heads to Venice where he seemingly wants to buy guns to go on a duck hunt, partaking in one of his favourite activities before he meets his inevitable fate.

It’s in Venice that he has a chance encounter with a young countess, Renata (Matilda De Angelis).  She is betrothed to another man, someone who will save her penniless family from losing everything.  But she really longs for wide open spaces, to go to America and drive for miles in one direction, instead of circling the canals of her city in a boat.  So, she is immediately intrigued and besotted with this physically and emotionally damaged soldier despite the fact there are more than three decades of age between them.  

The pair share a night eating, drinking and dancing their way through Venice, walking through the romantic city in a way reminiscent of the way Jesse and Celine do in the ‘Before’ trilogy.  Ortiz is careful in this modern day not to make Renata and Richard’s relationship cross too many lines, less of a sexual desire and more two people desperate to connect and feel something besides pain, regret, or responsibility.  

As such the film version of Across the River and Into the Trees becomes a melancholic, almost brooding look at these two characters, each trapped in their own way.  The Colonel is confined to a body that is failing him, a mind heavy with war trauma, loss and remorse.  Renata is stuck in a relationship of convenience, her dreams and rebellious nature bound by familial obligations and geography.  

Schreiber is pretty well the perfect choice for a Hemingway character, the picture of gruff masculinity with that ounce of vulnerability to keep him accessible, sympathetic.  Like most of his roles, he pours himself into Cantwell, a reliable actor whether he is Sabretooth in a big budget X-Men film or the titular character in Ray Donovan, for which he received many award nominations.  He seems to avoid most clichés that this character could have embodied, no matter if he is sharing the screen in tender moments with Angelis, or alongside Josh Hutcherson, who plays his driver and whom he is always trying to ditch.  It’s nice to see him play leading man here, a role he deserves more than we see.  

Schreiber and Angelis (who more than holds her own) star alongside the city of Venice itself to bring this slow burn of a film to gentle life.  Shot in natural light by cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe Venice looks every bit as romantic and fantastical as it should.  Though, with Ortiz opting to have the vast majority of the film in 4:3 aspect, we lose a lot of the peripheral beauty of the city.  When things eventually open up in the latter part of the film, I wished we had a wider view all along.  

Across the River and Into the Trees is a fine film, elevated with solid performances and first-class production value.  Its modern-day take, as well as the decision to tell the story more linearly than the source material, may bother Hemingway purists, but it does make the story more cinematic and accessible to a 2024 audience (or 2022 audience, as this film premiered that year part of the Sun Valley Film Festival).  While it’s not always completely engaging, its final scene, while inevitable, still packs an emotional punch that brings the journey to a poignant end.    

Across the River and Into the Trees is available on demand starting November 1, 2024.