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Hold
on to your hats – Philip and Belinda Haas have made another
dull and slow-moving film.
Their latest is based on a W. Somerset Maugham novella,
which was directed by Philip and adapted for the screen by
Belinda, the duo responsible for the snore-fests Angels &
Insects and The Blood Oranges.
The
setting may sound familiar - pre-World War II Florence at that
time when things are just beginning to get a bit uncomfortable
for English citizens living in Italy.
But this is no Tea With Mussolini.
Possibly Crumpets With Clara (as in Peracci –
Mussolini’s mistress), but even that would be pushing it.
I don’t know where it’s written that all period
pictures have to include at least one ballroom dancing scene
that features fancy chandeliers, ladies in long, white gloves
and men in tails and top hats.
Just once, I’d like to see a film that leaves this
scene out. Or at
least postpones it for the first thirty or forty minutes.
Here, it’s Villa’s first scene.
Villa
stars Kristin Scott Thomas (Random Hearts) as Mary Panton,
a widowed Brit freeloading in Florence (that would have been a
better title as well). She
hobnobs with society's upper crust, thanks to a friendship with
gossipy Princess San Ferdinando (Anne Bancroft, Keeping the
Faith), and even has a potential beau in Sir Edgar Swift
(James Fox, Mickey Blue Eyes).
He’s the kind of uptight Englishman that seems like
he’s got a pole jammed where the sun don’t shine, and he
requests Mary’s hand in marriage as if he just asked her to
pass the Grey Poupon. Sir
Edgar is also the Governor of Bengal, so Mary would be set
financially and socially for life.
Right
off the bat, allow me to suggest two ways that Villa
could have been better. First,
they could have cast Jaime Foxx instead of James Fox.
Now that’s already more interesting.
Second, they could have made his role as the Governor of
Bengal involve wearing a rainbow-colored wig at all of
Cincinnati’s home football games.
Anyway,
Mary doesn’t love Sir Edgar but will probably marry him
regardless. Then
she meets a randy American named Rowley Flint (Sean Penn, Sweet
and Lowdown) and confides her situation to him one evening
after a party. Mary
is obviously attracted to Rowley, but gives him a fresh one when
he tells her not to marry Sir Edgar and then tries to put the
moves on her.
Instead,
Mary has a one-night fling with an Austrian refugee violin
player (Jeremy Davies, Ravenous) that ends up offing
himself in a particularly lackluster scene that I’m sure was
supposed to be suspenseful.
Mary and Rowley ditch the body and almost get caught,
which made me think that Villa had one more chance to
redeem itself by turning into Weekend at Bernie’s Villa.
But, of course, it doesn’t.
It’s just too happy being miserably boring instead.
And who would have thought that this role would have been
more embarrassing for Bancroft than Keeping the
Faith?
1:55
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for light sexual content and mild violence
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