Movie & TV Nurses
“In Love and War” Movie Review
A WWI biopic about American nurse Agnes Von Kurowsky and a young Ernest Hemingway
In Love and War is a 1996 film based on the real-life romance between a young Ernest Hemingway and Agnes Von Kurowsky, the nurse who treated him after he was wounded during the First World War.
The film was produced and directed by actor-director Richard Attenborough, known for grand stories (he directed A Bridge Too Far and Gandhi), and filmed on location in the beautiful Italian mountain town of Vittorio Veneto.
The story begins in July 1918, in the final months of World War I. At the time, Italy feared an overwhelming invasion from Austria and requested aid from the United States. Since U.S. troops had already been committed to France, President Wilson promised to send Red Cross workers to Italy to “boost morale and care for the wounded.”
In Search of Adventure
One of those workers is an 18-year-old from Chicago: Ernest Hemingway, played by Chris O’Donnell. After being severely wounded in action, he is sent to a convent-turned-hospital, where he meets Agnes Von Kurowsky, a nurse from New York seven years his senior, played by a very lovely Sandra Bullock.