''The Garden of Eden'' is a 2008 British-Spanish thriller drama film directed by John Irvin and starring Mena Suvari,

Jack Huston Jack Alexander Huston (born 7 December 1982) is a British actor. He appeared as Richard Harrow in the HBO television drama series '' Boardwalk Empire''. He also had a supporting role in the 2013 film '' American Hustle'', portrayed the eponym ...

and

Caterina Murino Caterina Murino (born 15 September 1977) is an Italian actress. She began her acting career in the 1999 production of the play '' Richard III'' and later made her breakthrough with the 2004 film '' The Corsican File''. She went on to appear in t ...

. It is based on the 1986 posthumously published novel of the same name by

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

Plot

Set in the late 1920s, David Bourne is an American writer and World War I veteran who meets and marries the alluring Catherine Hill after a whirlwind romance in Paris, France. They travel on a long honeymoon through the south of France and into Spain where David plans to write his next book; a non-fiction piece about his travels in Africa as a child with his explorer father who was also into big game hunting. Catherine soon becomes restless with David over his focused attention to writing and begins to play a series of mind games with him. Catherine grows more mentally unbalanced as she pushes David's patience and devotion to her in which she convinces David to dye his hair bleach-blonde, the color of hers, "so they are twins, summer-tanned and androgynous." They have sex then argue. David becomes both uncomfortable and curious when Catherine meets and brings a sultry Italian woman, named Marita, into their marriage to spice things up with both of them having sexual relations with Marita (but never at the same time). The erotic mind games David and Catherine play off against each other reach new levels when they use Marita to make each other jealous leading to Catherine indulging in more self-destructive behavior.

Cast

* Mena Suvari as Catherine Hill Bourne *

as David Bourne *

as Marita *

Richard E. Grant Richard E. Grant (born Richard Grant Esterhuysen; 5 May 1957) is a Swazi-English actor and presenter. He made his film debut as Withnail in the comedy ''Withnail and I'' (1987). Grant received critical acclaim for his role as Jack Hock in Marie ...

as Colonel Philip Boyle *

Matthew Modine Matthew Avery Modine (born March 22, 1959) is an American actor and filmmaker, who rose to prominence through his role as U.S. Marine Private/Sergeant J.T. "Joker" Davis in ''Full Metal Jacket''. His other film roles include the title character ...

as David's Father * Carmen Maura as Madame Aurol

Reception

The film has approval rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "''Garden of Eden'' dramatizes Ernest Hemingway's clipped storytelling without carrying over the intelligence that undergirded the author's writing, yielding a thin drama full of artifice and no feeling."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which sampled nine critics and calculated a weighted average score of 28 out of 100, reported that the film received "generally unfavorable reviews". Jesse Cataldo of ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...

'' gave the film one and a half stars. Noel Murray of ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'' graded the film a D+.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Garden of Eden, The (2008 film) 2008 thriller films British thriller films Spanish thriller films Films directed by John Irvin Films based on works by Ernest Hemingway Roadside Attractions films 2000s English-language films 2000s British films English-language Spanish films