Tea with Mussolini (1999)
Country: IT/GB
Technical: col 116m
Director: Franco Zeffirelli
Cast: Cher, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Lily Tomlin
Synopsis:
Die-hard English colonists of Florence during the thirties and forties include a restorer of paintings, a rescuer of an orphaned boy and an aloof Ambassador's widow confirmed in her dislike of a beautiful American Jewess.
Review:
At times recalling other films rather uncomfortably (A Room with a View, La Vita è Bella), Zeffirelli's autobiographical character drama does settle into its own nostalgic groove and produces moments of true sentiment among the cheesier ones (Michael Williams's consul has to bow his head in disbelief once too often). The true horrors of the war are perhaps too cosily kept at bay for modern taste, but the film's charm is hard to resist for all but the most curmudgeonly.
Country: IT/GB
Technical: col 116m
Director: Franco Zeffirelli
Cast: Cher, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Lily Tomlin
Synopsis:
Die-hard English colonists of Florence during the thirties and forties include a restorer of paintings, a rescuer of an orphaned boy and an aloof Ambassador's widow confirmed in her dislike of a beautiful American Jewess.
Review:
At times recalling other films rather uncomfortably (A Room with a View, La Vita è Bella), Zeffirelli's autobiographical character drama does settle into its own nostalgic groove and produces moments of true sentiment among the cheesier ones (Michael Williams's consul has to bow his head in disbelief once too often). The true horrors of the war are perhaps too cosily kept at bay for modern taste, but the film's charm is hard to resist for all but the most curmudgeonly.
Country: IT/GB
Technical: col 116m
Director: Franco Zeffirelli
Cast: Cher, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Lily Tomlin
Synopsis:
Die-hard English colonists of Florence during the thirties and forties include a restorer of paintings, a rescuer of an orphaned boy and an aloof Ambassador's widow confirmed in her dislike of a beautiful American Jewess.
Review:
At times recalling other films rather uncomfortably (A Room with a View, La Vita è Bella), Zeffirelli's autobiographical character drama does settle into its own nostalgic groove and produces moments of true sentiment among the cheesier ones (Michael Williams's consul has to bow his head in disbelief once too often). The true horrors of the war are perhaps too cosily kept at bay for modern taste, but the film's charm is hard to resist for all but the most curmudgeonly.