The Rum DiaryMovies like The Rum Diary
- Key Features:
- Journalism, Puerto Rico, 1950s, Alcoholism, Corruption, Property development, Love triangle, Self-discovery, Expatriate, Cynical character, Moral ambiguity, Political commentary
- Tone:
- humorous, cynical, satirical
- Target Audience:
- Literary enthusiasts, Fans of Hunter S. Thompson, Travel enthusiasts, Period drama fans
- Emotional Arc:
- Disillusionment → Hedonism → Awakening
The Rum Diary

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.
The Rum Diary
After an inspiring chance encounter with his idol, rookie journalist Jay Bahadur uproots his life and moves to Somalia looking for the story of a lifetime. Hooking up with a local fixer, he attempts to get embedded with the local Somali pirates, only to quickly find himself in over his head.

A chronicle of the life of a middle-class French girl's sexual adventures, her then fall into prostitution, and her ultimate redemption.

Writer and Adderall enthusiast Stephen Elliott reaches a low point when his estranged father resurfaces, claiming that Stephen has fabricated much of the dark childhood that that fuels his writing. Adrift in the precarious gray area of memory, Stephen is led by three sources of inspiration: a new romance, the best friend who shares his history, and a murder trial that reminds him more than a little of his own story. Based on the memoir of the same name.

A high school basketball player’s life turns upside down after free-falling into the harrowing world of drug addiction.

Fatherless barrio Puerto Rican Rico is a menial car mechanic by day, but lives for the nights, when he dances and dates hot dancing girls, cockily convinced the title of Salsa king in fancy nightclub La Luna's upcoming contest is to be his. He encourages his best friend, courteous gentleman Ken, to date his sister Margarita so he gets a free hand with her flirtatious classmate Lola. The reigning salsa queen Luna's interest in Rico as dance-partner threatens his on-off relationship with Vicki. More jealous trouble follows when Ken and Margarita fall in true love.

A novelist fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.

Against a background of war breaking out in Europe and the Mexican fiesta Day of Death, we are taken through one day in the life of Geoffrey Firmin, a British consul living in alcoholic disrepair and obscurity in a small southern Mexican town in 1939. The consul's self-destructive behaviour, perhaps a metaphor for a menaced civilization, is a source of perplexity and sadness to his nomadic, idealistic half-brother, Hugh, and his ex-wife, Yvonne, who has returned with hopes of healing Geoffrey and their broken marriage.

David Nau leads a band of modern day pirates who raid yachts and sail boats of people on vacation in the Caribbean. When reporter Blair Maynard and his son arrive to investigate the mystery of the disappearing boats, Nau and his band of raiders decide to induct them into their tribe.

In the South Pacific island of Makatea, career-driven magazine editor Robin Monroe is on a week-long vacation getaway with her boyfriend, Frank Martin. An emergency work assignment in neighboring Tahiti requires Robin to hire the cantankerous pilot Quinn Harris who had flown them to Makatea on a small transport plane. While flying, a powerful storm forces Quinn to make an emergency landing on a nearby deserted island. The dissimilar pair avoid each other at first, until they're forced to team up to escape from the island -- and some pirates who want their heads.

A writer stumbles upon a long-hidden secret when he agrees to help former British Prime Minister Adam Lang complete his memoirs on a remote island after the politician's assistant drowns in a mysterious accident.

During a trip to Berlin, a young Amish in the middle of a rite of passage reconnects with his roots, explores other ways of life, falls in love — and faces a big decision.

Irene is a magazine editor living under the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Francisco is a handsome photographer and he comes to Irene for a job. As a sympathizer with the underground resistance movement, Francisco opens her eyes and her heart to the atrocities being committed by the state.

On the Spanish island of Ibiza, porn filmmaker Sandro and Angelino, the manager of a beachside watering hole, find their very different lives overlapping. Meanwhile, the island police chief, who is currently at odds with his rebellious son Jorge, is investigating the death of a drug dealer (which was accidentally brought on by Angelino). Jorge's plans to move to America have so far been thwarted by his father, but when he finds out about the affair his dad had been having with a male nightclub dancer, he uses it as blackmail fodder.

Downtrodden writer Henry and distressed goddess Wanda aren't exactly husband and wife: they're wedded to their bar stools. But, they like each other's company—and Barfly captures their giddy, gin-soaked attempts to make a go of life on the skids.

She's a magazine writer who gives up her career for love and family. He's a playboy newspaper columnist who can't quite give up his old tricks. And if that combination doesn't give a relationship heartburn, nothing will.

In 2002, cable news producer Kim Barker decides to shake up her routine by taking a daring new assignment in Kabul, Afghanistan. Dislodged from her comfortable American lifestyle, Barker finds herself in the middle of an out-of-control war zone. Luckily, she meets Tanya Vanderpoel, a fellow journalist who takes the shell-shocked reporter under her wing. Amid the militants, warlords and nighttime partying, Barker discovers the key to becoming a successful correspondent.

Set in puritanical Boston in the mid 1600s, the story of seamstress Hester Prynne, who is outcast after she becomes pregnant by a respected reverend. She refuses to divulge the name of the father, is "convicted" of adultery and forced to wear a scarlet "A" until an Indian attack unites the Puritans and leads to a reevaluation of their laws and morals.

A young sex worker from Brooklyn gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as his parents set out to get the marriage annulled.

Desperate for a good story, a sex-addicted journalist throws himself into the world of high-class escorts when he starts following a Stanford-educated prostitute.

A widower and his daughter witness the retirement of a colleague of his and the closing of her department at her university.

Raoul Duke and his attorney Dr. Gonzo drive a red convertible across the Mojave desert to Las Vegas with a suitcase full of drugs to cover a motorcycle race. As their consumption of drugs increases at an alarming rate, the stoned duo trash their hotel room and fear legal repercussions. Duke begins to drive back to L.A., but after an odd run-in with a cop, he returns to Sin City and continues his wild drug binge.

Shane O'Shea, a Jersey boy with big dreams, crosses the river in hopes of finding another, more exciting life at Studio 54. When Steve Rubell, the mastermind behind the infamous disco plucks Shane from the sea of faces clamoring to get inside his club, Shane not only gets his foot in the door, but lands a coveted job behind the bar - and a front-row ticket to the most legendary party on the planet.

When a congressional aide is killed, a Washington, D.C. journalist starts investigating the case involving the Representative, his old college friend.

Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.

Charles, an attorney, and Helen, his devoted wife, seem to have everything – money, a beautiful mansion – the American Dream. However, as Helen prepares to celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary, her life takes an unexpected twist when she comes home to find her clothes packed up in a U-Haul van parked in the driveway. Charles is divorcing her and kicks her out. Helen moves in with her grandmother Madea, an old woman who doesn't take any lip from anyone. Madea helps Helen through these tough times by showing her what is really important in life. Helen is forced to rediscover love, life, and religion in her pursuit for happiness.

A cover-up that spanned four U.S. Presidents pushed the country's first female newspaper publisher and a hard-driving editor to join an unprecedented battle between journalist and government. Inspired by true events.

Set in a small politically unstable Latin American country, the story follows the half English and half Latino Dr. Eduardo Plarr, who left his home to find a better life. Along the way he meets an array of people, including British Consul Charley Fortnum, a representative in Latin America who is trying to keep Revolution from occurring. He is also a remorseful alcoholic. Another person the doctor meets is Clara, whom he immediately falls in love with, but there is a problem: Clara is Charley's wife.

A lesbian, an aspiring actor, an aspiring singer, a low-class marriage, a neighborhood community and 2 renowned directors have memorable less-than-24-hour-long experiences while living in/visiting the capital of Cuba.

A young Australian reporter tries to navigate the political turmoil of Indonesia during the rule of President Sukarno with the help of a diminutive photographer.

The incredibly spoiled and overprivileged students of Camden College are a backdrop for an unusual love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate.

The fates of Henry - an American correspondent - and Teresa, one of the Republic's censors during the Spanish Civil War.

Bridget Jones is an average woman struggling against her age, her weight, her job, her lack of a man, and her various imperfections. As a New Year's resolution, Bridget decides to take control of her life, starting by keeping a diary in which she will always tell the complete truth. The fireworks begin when her charming though disreputable boss takes an interest in the quirky Miss Jones. Thrown into the mix are Bridget's band of slightly eccentric friends and a rather disagreeable acquaintance into whom Bridget cannot seem to stop running or help finding quietly attractive.

A group of young filmmakers encounter real zombies while filming a horror movie of their own.

Twenty-something Richard travels to Thailand and finds himself in possession of a strange map. Rumours state that it leads to a solitary beach paradise, a tropical bliss - excited and intrigued, he sets out to find it.

In the wake of a career-ending scandal, disgraced lawyer Lawson Russell moves to Key West, where he befriends aging novelist Christopher Marlowe. After letting Russell borrow his latest manuscript, Marlowe dies of a heart attack. When Russell publishes the dead man's manuscript under his own name, he makes the best-seller list—and unwittingly becomes the prime suspect in the investigation of a grisly multiple homicide.

Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.

Though he began in stand-up comedy, Andre Allen hit the big-time as the star of a trilogy of action-comedies about a talking bear but now he wants to be taken seriously. His passion project about the Haitian Revolution, a movie called Uprize, was panned by the NY Times film critic. A couple days before the wedding to his reality star fiancée, he's forced to spend the day with Chelsea Brown, a profile writer for the New York Times. Unexpectedly, he opens up to her, and as they wind their way across New York, he tries to get back in touch with his comedic roots.

During the revolution, a high-stakes gambler arrives in Cuba seeking to win big in poker games. Along the way, he meets and falls in love with the wife of a Communist revolutionary.

Jack Manfred is an aspiring writer who to make ends meet, takes a job as a croupier. Jack remains an observer, knowing that everything in life is a gamble and that gamblers are born to lose. Inevitably, he gets sucked into the world of the casino which takes its toll on his relationships and the novel he is writing.

On the eve of his 78th birthday, the ailing, alcoholic writer Clive Langham spends a painful and sleepless night mentally composing and recomposing scenes for a novel in which characters based on his own family are shaped by his fantasies and memories, alongside his caustic commentary on their behaviour.

A handsome Belgian sailor on shore leave in the port of Brest, who is also a drug smuggler and murderer, embarks upon a voyage of highly charged and violent homosexual self-discovery that will change him forever from the man he once was.

Hard-drinking novelist Zach Hutton spirals out of control after his wife and mistress both leave him. Alone and crippled by a bad case of writer's block, Zach slips in and out of casual relationships and one-night stands, while his drinking becomes more and more severe. With the help of a bartender and his therapist, Zach confronts his demons — women and alcohol.

In 1975, Ryszard Kapuściński, a veteran Polish journalist, embarked on a seemingly suicidal road trip into the heart of the Angola's civil war. There, he witnessed once again the dirty reality of war and discovered a sense of helplessness previously unknown to him. Angola changed him forever: it was a reporter who left Poland, but it was a writer who returned…

Writer Ernest Hemingway begins a romance with fellow scribe Martha Gellhorn.

Two years after a burn-out, Duval is still unemployed. Contacted by an enigmatic businessman, he is offered a simple and well-paid job: transcribing telephone tapping. Duval accepts financially without questioning the purpose of the organization that employs him. Precipitated at the heart of a political plot, he must face the brutal mechanics of the underground world of the secret services.

This is a story of a man in free fall. On the road to redemption, darkness lights his way. Connected with the afterlife, Uxbal is a tragic hero and father of two who's sensing the danger of death. He struggles with a tainted reality and a fate that works against him in order to forgive, for love, and forever.

Thirty-year-old Hlynur still lives with his mother and spends his days drinking, watching porn and surfing the net while living off unemployment checks. A girl is interested in him, but he stands back from commitment. His mother's Spanish flamenco teacher, Lola, moves in with them for Christmas. On New Year's Eve, while his mother is away, Hlynur finds out Lola is a lesbian, but also ends up having sex with her. He soon finds out he and his mother are sharing more than a house. Eventually he must find out where he fits into the puzzle, and how to live life less selfishly.

Reporters Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole bravely pursue the story of the Boston Strangler at great personal risk, putting their own lives on the line in their quest to uncover the truth.

Jorge is a writer for a left-leaning Buenos Aires magazine that's at odds with the country's military dictatorship. He meets lovely and intelligent actress Laura and begins an on-and-off romance that will continue for the next two decades. Fearful of commitment, Jorge initially moves on from her and his fortunes suffer, but the situation changes when he and Laura renew their acquaintance. Meanwhile, the country undergoes a political transformation.

A radio journalist and his technician get in over their heads when they hatch a scheme to fake their own kidnapping during a rebel uprising in South America and hide out in New York instead.

Nanni Moretti recalls in his diary three slice of life stories characterized by a sharply ironic look: in the first one he wanders through a deserted Rome, in the second he visits a reclusive friend on an island, and in the last he has to grapple with an unknown illness.

Cynical British journalist Fowler falls in love with a young Vietnamese woman but is dismayed when a naïve U.S. official also begins vying for her attention. In retaliation, Fowler informs the communists that the American is selling arms to their enemy.

The true story of fraudulent Washington, D.C. journalist Stephen Glass, who rose to meteoric heights as a young writer in his 20s, becoming a staff writer at The New Republic for three years. Looking for a short cut to fame, Glass concocted sources, quotes and even entire stories, but his deception did not go unnoticed forever, and eventually, his world came crumbling down.

Several groups of Italians experience amusing adventures and tests of character on the Caribbean island of Antigua. Some of the characters are there simply for rest and relaxation, while others act with different motivations. Multiple plot lines unfold simultaneously as different characters' stories are presented.

A young drifter working on a river barge disrupts his employers' lives while hiding the fact that he knows more about a dead woman found in the river than he admits.

Based on a true story, a hot shot Washington DC lobbyist and his protégé go down hard as their schemes to peddle influence lead to corruption and murder.

A reporter becomes the target of a vicious smear campaign that drives him to the point of suicide after he exposes the CIA's role in arming Contra rebels in Nicaragua and importing cocaine into California. Based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb.

Middle-aged Giulietta grows suspicious of her husband, Giorgio, when his behavior grows increasingly questionable. One night when Giorgio initiates a seance amongst his friends, Giulietta gets in touch with spirits and learns more about herself and her painful past. Slightly skeptical, but intrigued, she visits a mystic who gives her more information -- and nudges her toward the realization that her husband is indeed a philanderer.

Ann, a frustrated wife, enters into counseling due to a troubled marriage. Unbeknownst to her, her husband John has begun an affair with her sister. When John’s best friend Graham arrives, his penchant for interviewing women about their sex lives forever changes John and Ann’s rocky marriage.

Filippo is a star on the Italian TV. He works for a documentary series about wild animals and nature. He is sent to Tenerife (Spain) to shot an issue about the local stork. It is the 13th of August. After he did his job is time to leave, but the ferry couldn't operate. He has to spend the night in the island. The day after is again the 13th of August, and Filippo live again the same day for different times. Something has to change to exit the paranoid and unrealistic situation.

A couple of friends work for a taxi driver to rob his passengers, but they feel like they're getting ripped off. They decide to plan their own robberies, but they are amateurs and things don't go too well. One of the youths, Cordoba, whose girlfriend Sandra is pregnant, just wants to get enough cash so they can leave Argentina and get to Uruguay to start a new life. He and his friends plan one last robbery, but things don't go as planned.

A rancher, his clairvoyant wife and their family face turbulent years in South America.

After his mistress runs over a black teen, a Wall Street hotshot sees his life unravel in the spotlight; A down-and-out reporter breaks the story and opportunists clamber to use it to their advantage.

An arrogant reporter exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to revitalize his career.

When a bumbling New Yorker is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.

Olga discovers the unfinished diary of a notorious killer and becomes captivated by its dark secrets. As she delves deeper, she uncovers a mysterious connection between them, putting her life—and the lives of those around her—in grave danger.

The film chronicles the rise and fall of the world's most feared drug lord Pablo Escobar and his volatile love affair with Colombia's most famous journalist Virginia Vallejo throughout a reign of terror that tore a country apart.

Magazine photographer Alex Anderson and author Colin Page head to Fiji in search of the illusive blue pearl that Colin wrote about in his bestselling novel Pearl in Paradise. Alex stands to land the creative director position if she can photograph the pearl for the magazine’s 30th anniversary issue, and Colin hopes that by writing a guest article about the long-lost gem he can boost sales of his failing other books and not lose his publisher. As the two head off to their search, neither is aware yet that finding love could be the rarest adventure of all.

A young Donald Trump, eager to make his name as a hungry scion of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn, the cutthroat attorney who would help create the Donald Trump we know today. Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protégé—someone with raw ambition, a hunger for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win.

Curmudgeonly author Giles De'Ath, a widower with a marked distaste for modern popular culture, attempts to buy a ticket for a film adaptation of an E.M. Forster novel, but instead finds himself watching a tacky teen sex comedy. Yet when the beautiful Ronnie Bostock appears on the movie screen, Giles finds himself caught in a whirlwind of unanswered questions about both his own sexuality and his place in late 20th-century society.

An alcoholic becomes involved in a fellow A.A. member's plan to kidnap her young son from the boy's wealthy grandfather.

Rose is taken in by the Hillyer family to serve as a 1930s housemaid so that she can avoid falling into a life of prostitution. Her appearence and personality is such that all men fall for her, and she knows it. She can't help herself from getting into trouble with men.

When reporter Rachel Armstrong writes a story that reveals the identity of a covert CIA operative, the government demands that Rachel reveal her source. She defies the special prosecutor and is thrown in jail. Meanwhile, her attorney, Albert Burnside argues her case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A young Englishman is dispatched to Sarawak to become part of the British colonial government. He encounters some unorthodox local traditions, and finds himself faced with tough decisions of the heart involving the beautiful Selima, the unwitting object of his affections.

When her rather explicit copy is rejected, magazine journalist Kate is asked by her editor to come up with an article on loving relationships instead, and to do so by the end of the day. This gets Kate thinking back over her own various experiences, and to wondering if she is in much of a position to write on the subject.

Fresh out of rehab, Rona returns to the Orkney Islands—a place both wild and beautiful, right off the Scottish coast. Now 29 and after more than a decade of living life on the edge in London, where she both found and lost love, Rona attempts to come to terms with her troubled past. As she reconnects with the dramatic landscape where she grew up, memories of her traumatic childhood merge with more recent challenging events that have set her on the path to recovery.

During a layover in Albuquerque, work colleagues Les and Natalie discover more about each other than they ever thought possible. Anxious and irritable, Les is drawn back into the city by past experiences he can’t forget (even if he doesn't really remember the particulars of his previous drunken adventure). Natalie, refusing to leave his side, follows along as her own secrets are slowly revealed, leaving her feeling both vulnerable and unbound.

The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it.

A look at the relationship between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his early supporter and eventual colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and how the website's growth and influence led to an irreparable rift between the two friends.

In Colombia just after the Great War, an old man falls from a ladder; dying, he professes great love for his wife. After the funeral, a man calls on the widow - she dismisses him angrily. Flash back more than 50 years to the day Florentino Ariza, a telegraph boy, falls in love with Fermina Daza, the daughter of a mule trader.

A sex-addicted con-man pays for his mother's hospital bills by playing on the sympathies of those who rescue him from choking to death.

Based on the journals of Che Guevara, leader of the Cuban Revolution. In his memoirs, Guevara recounts adventures he and best friend Alberto Granado had while crossing South America by motorcycle in the early 1950s.

This comical love story follows the story of A.J. Fikry, whose life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history and now his prized possession, a rare edition of Poe poems, has been stolen. He’s given up on people and even the books in his store offer another reminder that the world is changing too rapidly. But when a mysterious package arrives at the store, it gives Fikry the chance to make his life over and see things anew.

Jason Staebler lives on the Boardwalk and fronts for the local mob in Atlantic City. He is a dreamer who asks his brother David, a radio personality from Philadelphia, to help him build a paradise on a Pacific Island, which might be just another of his pie-in-the-sky schemes. Inevitably, complications begin to pile up.

1965, Dominican Republic. At a seaside brothel, the lives of a group of prostitutes take a dramatic turn when freedom fighters stage a revolutionary coup, making them realise they can have a better life and perhaps find love. But everything changes when the US army supresses the revolution and takes the brothel as a military base: the girls will have to face the dilemma of either sleeping with the enemy or protecting their dignity at all costs.

The discovery of a corpse and the ensuing probe by an idealistic journalist threatens to unravel a bumbling local politician's campaign for governor of Colorado.

The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.

Roberto, a shy law student in Rome, meets Bruno, a forty-year-old exuberant, capricious man, who takes him for a drive through the Roman and Tuscany countries in the summer. When their journey starts to blend into their daily lives though, the pair’s newfound friendship is tested.

Targeted by a dirty cop after witnessing a murder, bank clerk Mario flees to Puerto Escondido, Mexico, where a couple of oddball Italian expats drags him into a journey of self-discovery and bad decisions.

Minnie Goetze is a 15-year-old aspiring comic-book artist, coming of age in the haze of the 1970s in San Francisco. Insatiably curious about the world around her, Minnie is a pretty typical teenage girl. Oh, except that she’s sleeping with her mother’s boyfriend.

Cherry drifts from college dropout to army medic in Iraq—anchored only by his one true love, Emily. But after returning from the war with PTSD, his life spirals into drugs and crime as he struggles to find his place in the world.

A rich businessman makes a bet he can survive on the streets of a rough Los Angeles neighborhood for 30 days completely penniless. During his stay he discovers another side of life and falls in love with a homeless woman.

In a corrupt city, a small-time gangster and the estranged wife of a pot dealer find themselves thrown together in an escapade of love, money, drugs and danger.

Camille, a young idealistic photojournalist, goes to the Central African Republic to cover the civil war that is brewing up. What she sees there will change her destiny forever.

Manuel, a Spanish politician whose high-class lifestyle is based on nefarious and illegal business threatens to break his entire party after a newspaper exposes him to the public eye. Rather than admit to any wrongdoing, he decides to sell out his whole party in an effort to avoid jail time. It's a decision that will put many lives at risk.

During a murder investigation, the police uncover a human trafficking network that involves a politician the media is protecting.

In 1980, an American journalist covering the Salvadoran Civil War becomes entangled with both the leftist guerrilla groups and the right-wing military dictatorship while trying to rescue his girlfriend and her children.

Small town in Italy, end of the 19th century. Luciano, a drunk, doesn't fit in the town. Rebelion against authority and a forbidden love makes him to commit a crime accidentally. To pay for his crime, he is forced into exile on the most remote island in the world, Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego. The hunt for the shipwreck treasure hidden on the island becomes his opportunity for redemption.

A drunken playboy stands to lose a wealthy inheritance when he falls for a woman that his family doesn't like.
