After teenage ambulance driver Ernest Hemingway takes shrapnel in the leg during World War I, he falls in love with Agnes von Kurowsky, a beautiful older nurse at the hospital where he's sent to recover. Their affair slowly blossoms, until Hemingway boldly asks Agnes to be his wife and journey to America with him.

In 1959, a young journalist ventures to Havana, Cuba to meet his idol, the legendary Ernest Hemingway who helped him find his literary voice, while the Cuban Revolution comes to a boil around them.