A few months in the life of Alice B. Toklas (Linda Hunt) and Gertrude Stein (Linda Bassett). During this particular summer, they fear Gertrude is ill. As they await the results of medical tests, Alice attends to Gertrude in addition to giving assistance editing Gertrude's writing. They go driving (Gertrude drives, Alice navigates) and meet a young American (Andrew McCarthy) on his way to fight in Spain. They visit Picasso, Fernande Olivier, and Apollinaire. Hemingway (Bruce McGill) pays a call and hilarity ensues. A friend brings a fatherless baby whom Alice agrees to care for. Through it all, Gertrude takes Alice for granted, treating her abruptly and un-feelingly. Hemingway complains on Alice's behalf. Can Gertrude bring herself to tenderness?
Trivia: Linda Hunt is the only actor to have won an Academy Award portraying a member of the opposite sex, she won the Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar for her role as Billy Kwan in The Year Of Living Dangerously (1982). Note this was not Linda Hunt playing a woman pretending to be a man, like Barbra Streisand did in Yentl (1983) or, in reverse, as Dustin Hoffman did in Tootsie (1982), but Hunt playing a man in a serious drama.
This is what is considered a fictional biopic in that the characters of Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, Picasso, Earnest Hemingway and other are real people, but the story itself is totally fictional and combines different periods of Stein's life into one summer. It is definitely a slow movie, I mean, hey, it's about the casual relationship between two women, the most action you get is a drive in the country. It is an okay movie, I'm not very knowledgeable on Gertrude Stein's work so I would probably be better is you were.
Posts
