Screenwriter Mark Magill and director Jill Godmilow (Antonia: Portrait of a Woman) conjure up the summer of Gertrude Stein's mysterious and unmentionable illness in the nineteenth year of her relationship with her famous amanuensis, among other things, Alice B. Toklas. They roast marshmallows around the campfire with, among others, Guillaume Apollinaire, who chimes in on a sing-along of "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine." Ernest Hemingway drops by their Paris digs to make a drunken lout of himself. Chronology, obviously, is not factually strict, nor is the highly creative (and fruitful) casting of undersized Linda Hunt as the saintly Miss Toklas. There is an ever-so-clever gamesmanship about much of the dialogue, but it's all somewhat stiff and formal and unfamiliar, as though everyone were always on the verge, or in the actual midst, of proposing an elaborate toast. And though the scenes vary widely in length, there is a sameness of tone about them -- rather arch and cagily circumspect -- that soon grows monotonous. With Linda Bassett, Andrew McCarthy, and Bruce McGill. (1987) — Duncan Shepherd
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