The Rum Diary
Directed by Bruce Robinson
- comedy
- drama
The story
Tired of the noise and madness of New York and the crushing conventions of late Eisenhower-era America, itinerant journalist Paul Kemp travels to the pristine island of Puerto Rico to write for a local San Juan newspaper run by the downtrodden editor Lotterman. Adopting the rum-soaked lifestyle of the late ‘50s version of Hemingway’s 'The Lost Generation', Paul soon becomes entangled with a very attractive American woman and her fiancée, a businessman involved in shady property development deals. It is within this world that Kemp ultimately discovers his true voice as a writer and integrity as a man.
What it’s like
Sun-bleached and sweaty, with saturated tropical color bleeding into peeling pastel walls, rum-glazed afternoons, and the blue-green glare of Caribbean water under hard noon light. Bruce Robinson shoots with loose, roving handheld movement and a restless energy that keeps the camera close to the drinkers at bars and the crowds in the streets, while breaks for slow pans across the harbor and crumbling colonial facades let the heat settle. Its vibe is boozy, rumpled, and wry, with a lazy ease undercut by a faint feeling that something is going wrong. The score is loose and jazzy, with sudden bursts of carnival drumming and festival noise, and the chaos of street parades and fire-breathing performers gives way to quiet hungover mornings. Pacing is episodic and shambling, more a drift than a drive, with a strong comic streak in the bar-stool banter and the newsroom's sour politics. Its violence is occasional and mostly comic, with a few brawls and a sharp edge of corruption and menace. The arc follows a drifting writer who slowly finds his conscience amid the hustle. It suits a lazy weekend afternoon, a long-haul flight, or a loose, grown-up watch with a drink in hand, for viewers who enjoy sardonic comedy with a bruised heart.
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