''Hello Hemingway'' is a 1990 Cuban drama film directed by Fernando Pérez and starring Laura de la Uz. The plot, set in
Havana
Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (born Rubén Zaldívar; January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who played a dominant role in Cuban politics from his initial rise to power as part of the 1933 Revolt of t ...
's dictatorship, follows a young girl whose aspirations to obtain a scholarship in America against all odds are paralleled by her reading of
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
's ''
The Old Man and the Sea
''The Old Man and the Sea'' is a 1952 novella by the American author Ernest Hemingway. Written between December 1950 and February 1951, it was the last major fictional work Hemingway published during his lifetime. It tells the story of Santiag ...
64th Academy Awards
The 64th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1991 in the United States and took place on March 30, 1992, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles beg ...
, but was not designated a nominee.Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Plot
In 1956, sixteen-year-old Larita lives with her mother and her aunt's family in a ramshackle house outside
Havana
Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Ernest Hemingway's white mansion. At home, she adorns her walls with pictures of
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one of the most significant cultural figures of the ...
and
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis (born Bernard Schwartz; June 3, 1925September 29, 2010) was an American actor with a career that spanned six decades, achieving the height of his popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in more than 100 films, in roles co ...
, while at school she excels in her English class. Larita is delighted when her teacher suggests that she enter a competition for a scholarship to attend university in the United States. Larita also happily dates a classmate, Victor, who is trying to establish a student association.
On a visit to a bookshop, she is given a copy of Hemingway's ''
The Old Man and the Sea
''The Old Man and the Sea'' is a 1952 novella by the American author Ernest Hemingway. Written between December 1950 and February 1951, it was the last major fictional work Hemingway published during his lifetime. It tells the story of Santiag ...
'', which she starts to read avidly, drawing parallels between the novel and her own life which she records in her diary. At home, her family tease her about her academic aspirations. They resent the fact that while they work hard she studies and contributes nothing to their meager existence. The issue of finances becomes more acute when Larita is sent home from school because she is not wearing the correct uniform. However, she passes the first round of scholarship exams and is invited to a reception for the finalists. She makes herself as presentable as possible with the help of her relatives' sewing skills and the support of her grandmother, who pawns her treasured earrings to purchase fabric. She tells Victor that she has been shortlisted for the scholarship, which makes him angry because she has kept it a secret from him and is preparing to go abroad and abandon him for a year. That night Larita returns home to find that her uncle, whose salary was the family's principal means of support, has been fired from his job as a policeman.
At the scholarship interview, her chances appear to be hampered by the fact that she is illegitimate and does not have the right social connections to provide her with letters of recommendation. In desperation, Larita decides to visit Hemingway to see if he will write a reference for her, but she discovers he is away in Africa. Larita bitterly blames her mother for the fact that she is disadvantaged by poverty and illegitimacy. When she stays home from school pretending to be sick, her favorite teacher, Dr. Martinez, visits her and offers encouragement. To Larita's complaints about her poverty she says: "You're not exactly living under a bridge." Meanwhile, at school, the student protests climax, the student association tries to get students to boycott classes, and Victor is arrested.
Later that year, Larita takes a job at a coffee bar. One evening near Easter the scholarship administrator walks by and recognizes her. They establish that they recognize one another, but nothing else is said except the simplest wish from the administrator that Larita enjoy the holiday.
Cast
*Laura de la Uz as Larita
*Raúl Paz as Victor
*José Antonio Rodríguez as Tomás
*Herminia Sánchez as Josefa
*Micheline Calvert as Miss Amalia
*Marta del Rio as Doctor Martínez
* Wendy Guerra as Estela
Home media
The film was released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
in the USA in April 2002. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles.
See also
*
List of submissions to the 64th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
This is a list of submissions to the 64th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was created in 1956 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to honour non-English language, Englis ...