My House in Umbria
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Movie Reviews of My House in Umbria
Movie Review: Excellent Movie.
Summary: 5 Stars
Loved everything about it, the acting, the storyline and the scenery makes you want to visit Umbria. Great movie.Movie Review: My House in Umbria
Summary: 5 Stars
Maggie Smith is exceptional. The visuals of the Italian countryside were simply marvelous. Loved it!Movie Review: Delivery and opinion of DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
Product delivered quickly and in good order. DVD one of my favourite. This one a gift for a friend.Movie Review: Writer with grappa seeks lover
Summary: 4 Stars
Emily Delahunty has acquired four guests in her cosy Italian country mansion. She's revelling in the intimacy, eagerly dropping beads about her adventurous past; although now, it seems, she has settled here in the groves of Umbria as an author of romance paperbacks with titles such as "Two on a Sunbeam."
When she's splitting peas in the solid, vintage kitchen with Werner she is sincere and caring. With Thomas Riversmith, a university professor who studies the red carpenter ant, Emily is begging for jungle romance. Confiding unabashedly, she holds back nothing from her twirly past. The disgusted Tom shrinks from her almost body to body conversations and regards her love books as trash for the desperate. While she fancies that they might be courting an affair, Tom fears her boldness, looking forward to returning to America with his niece Aimee. Wickedly she smiles: "A few weeks with the right woman and all his little irritations would soon disappear."
"What Mrs. Emily Delahunty requires is a faucet of passion. Sloshing her grappa around the old world Umbrian mansion she speaks of her memories--an obliterated childhood; of numerous, disappointing men and a vanished youth in the Cafe Rose where she was obliged to entertain sweaty gentlemen.
Tom will return to America with Aimee in the morning. Needing to be a mother to the child of sunlight, Emily is in a restless fever. With two glasses and a bottle of grappa, she wakes him, her satin dressing gown flowing open. Again he is annoyed with her. Her sad face beseeches him: "It's unkind to call me Mrs. Delahunty, Tom. It's not even my real name." Though decidedly drunk, Emily exposes his guilt with wisdom then splashes grappa over his pajamas.
The writer of "bodice-rippers" triumphs and the novel of her Umbrian life ends with:
"In the garden, the delphiniums were in flower. Through scented twilight the girl in the white dress walked with a step as light as a morning cobweb. That evening, she hadn't a care in the world."
Relax and sip lemonade with My House in Umbria. You'll be singing "Rosa's Song" along with the jaunty Italian maid as she irons in the fragrant yard.
Movie Review: Interesting story set in beautiful Umbria
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm tempted to rate the film five stars but after reading some of the more negative reviews I can see some of their points.
On the plus side, this is an interesting story that avoids a lot of cliches of most films. Emily Delahonty, as played masterfully by Maggie Smith, is an older Englishwoman who seems to be exceptionally warm hearted, wise and generous. As the story unfolds we learn that she had a terrible childhood and her adult life seems to have been colorful but not entirely happy. Still she has done well writing romance novels and maintains a glorious home in Umbria. She tries to avoid the unhappy side of life with her novels that have happy endings and generous amounts of grappa.
When she and others are wounded in a freak train explosion she invites the survivors to her home to rest and heal. She is obviously lonely and needs them as much as she gives them. The chief recipient of this love is a child, played by a beautiful young actress, who wins the hearts of everyone, including the servants. Each of the survivors has lost a close family member, apparently, and so they reconnect here, since they are prohibited to leave the country, and find a new kind of family.
I found the story fascinating and the beautiful way they helped each other, most noticably by building an English country garden for Emily, was quite moving. What did bother me towards the end was the way Emily seemed to pursue the American uncle of the girl, who had come to take her back to the States. Perhaps the novel made this aspect of Emily's character more plausible but in the film, it is strange and jarring to see her descend from being an altruistic, kind woman into something sad and pathetic. It is understandable, given her unfortunate background, but there is nothing in the early part of the film that really hints at this weakness and makes her later actions credible.
Still, the excellent performances by the whole cast and the gorgeous scenery enhance an interesting story and make this a film worth seeing.