DOM HEMINGWAY

UK, 2013, 93 minutes, Colour.
Jude Law, Richard E.Grant, Demian Bechir, Kerry Condon, Emilia Clarke.
Directed by Richard Shepard.

While Jude Law has been a significant factor both on stage and on screen for several decades, his versatility has come to the fore during his 40s. He was the very restrained Karenin in the Keira Knightley version of Anna Karenina. He was a tough submarine captain in Black Sea. Here he is a safecracker who is taken the rap for an international criminal and served a prison sentence for 12 years.

The film opens with a tour de force monologue by Dom Hemingway, experiencing sex with a prisoner but all the time to claiming his prowess, especially his sexual prowess. Throughout the film, he keeps asserting himself that he is Dom Hemingway.

On release, he pals up with a close friend, played by Richard E.Grant. But he makes sure that he has a solid bout drinking and sex before he gets into further action, deciding to go to France with his friend to get the money he is owed by the criminal. At times he is uncontrollable, drinking, abusing the host, walking naked through the fields, apologising. Then, all of a sudden, there is a drastic car accident leading to Dom returning to London, especially to find his daughter, discovering her as a singer, her partner, and her child. Needless yo say, she wants little to do with him.

In the third part of the film,.Dom makes friends with his grandchild, visits the cemetery, makes some kind of peace with his daughter, and uses quite some shrewdness to get a little of his money back by meeting the gangster’s girlfriend in a London restaurant, kissing her, biting her ear – and biting off the expensive earring she is wearing.

A rough kind of film, but one, especially with Law’s performance, draws the audience in.

1. The title? The focus on Dom? His repeating “I am Dom Hemingway”? As a character, personality, his life, crime, career, prison, the good and bad?

2. British locations, prison, the streets, clubs, school, cemetery? The French locations, the countryside, the mansion? The musical score?

3. The initial impact of Dom himself, his long monologue, the sexual preoccupation, his progress, sexual activity, the prisoner? Further development of his character, the focus, his self-image, proud, power, sex? His language, crass, articulate, Shakespearean, his vocabulary, his rhetoric?

4. The chapters and indication of events and focus, tone?

5. In prison, at the opening, the meal, response to the guard, his getting out, going to the garage, bashing the mechanic because of his wife, being greeted by the others? Going to find Dick, their talk, the girls, sex, his drinking, the morning after?

6. Dick, his style, reticent, his partnership with Dom, crime, the passing of the years, the friendship, the loss of his hand and Dom not noticing? Travelling to France?

7. France, the countryside, seeing the girl on the bike, Ivan’s girlfriend, being welcomed by Ivan, Dom taking the rap for him, their talk, his drinking, bluntness, wanting the money? The meal, his talk, apologising? At home, yet feeling alien, the nude walk, Dick and his persuasion?

8. The ride, his standing in front of the car, reckless, the crash, the dead, Ivan being speared? The girl driving off with the cash?

9. Going back, possibilities, wanting to see his daughter?

10. The encounters with his daughter, finding her son? Going to the home, her partner, the African men, singing in the club? His visit?

11. The changing relationship, his daughter talking to him, her son? Going to the cemetery, the boy at the grave, their future?

12. Tour-de-force performance from Jude Law?