Up at the Villa *** (2000, Kristin Scott Thomas, Sean Penn, Anne Bancroft) – Classic Movie Review 1709

Director Philip Haas’s beautiful-looking but shaky 2000 romantic drama stars Kristin Scott Thomas and Sean Penn.

Scott Thomas plays Mary Panton, a holidaying English widow who faces a series of dramas and choices in 1938 Florence, when stuffy British knight Sir Edward Swift (James Fox) proposes marriage, she helps young Austrian refugee Karl Richter (Jeremy Davies), canoodles with charming American ne’er-do-well gigolo Rowley Flint (Sean Penn) and confronts the local Fascist cop. Anne Bancroft is the Princess San Ferdinando who knows all the secrets and Derek Jacobi plays Lucky Leadbetter.

Despite boasting the right cast, this is a disappointing version of the book by W Somerset Maugham. It should have been subtle, intelligent and moving, but it all seems a bit weary, unengaged and uninvolved, not getting fully in touch with the real drama that’s here.

The actors may sometimes be struggling against the hard work they find in Belinda Haas’s screenplay, but set designer Paul Brown’s production, Pino Donaggio’s score, Maurizio Calvesi’s cinematography and the Florence views and Tuscan scenery are superb.

Bancroft’s husband Mel Brooks appears in a cameo in the train station scene at end of film holding hands of two little girls and running. Bancroft’s died of cancer on June 6 2005, aged 73.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1709

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com/