3171 Film: My House in Umbria (2003)

[b]Precis[/b]:
After a bomb destroys a railway carriage, the four survivors repair to the villa of one, Mrs. Delahunty, a writer of romance novels, a woman with a past. The others are an aging British general, a young German man, and Aimee, an American girl orphaned in the blast. As these four strangers recover in Umbria's countryside and become friends, Aimee's uncle, a cold and childless academic who studies red carpenter ants, arrives to fetch her. Mrs. Delahunty fears this may not be in Aimee's best interests, begins to drink heavily, and fails in her attempts to connect with Aimee's uncle. Meanwhile, a persistent detective investigates the blast
[b]Opinion[/b]:
Forget it!

Category
Do & See

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 04/05/2006 - 09:53

The storyline doens't always make sense... but I liked it! Gorgeous scenery combined with Christie-esque shenanigans... :)

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 04/05/2006 - 10:04

Didn't Ronnie Barker play a role in this? Proved he could act.

I wonder how much of this was filmed in Umbria? It was full of anachronisms - cars and motorbikes which were far too young, and if you look very closely when they open a drawer there are Euros in it. Euros in 1960?? A very keen eyed young Italian who was watching this with me said "Stop the tape" - rewind - frame by frame - voila a fifty euro note!!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 04/05/2006 - 10:10

OK, let me try my assessment again:
[list][*]Lovely scenery[*]Dreadful story[*]Not bad acting[/list]
.....Barry Norman & Jonathan Ross' roles are safe m'thinks ;)

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 04/05/2006 - 10:28

Maggie Smith was good, as always. Ronnie Barker did indeed play one of the main roles, and he too was good in a very different sort of role from his usual. Unlike Timothy Spall who very competently played a very Timothy Spall sort of role.

The film is eye candy for Italophiles, but it's not just eye candy. There are some serious themes and the quality of the acting meant I didn't think at the end that I had completely wasted another hour and 45 minutes of my life. But nor did I ever feel truly involved with the story. I never cared greatly about the characters and the mystery element was thin. It seemed to me that the bomb blast and investigation were mainly pretexts to bring some very different characters together and watch them spark off each other. Unfortunately, the fireworks were most often of a very subtle sort.

If it had been set in, say, Uganda or Thailand, I doubt if I would have watched it to the end.

But the ending was a happy one, anyway.

Al

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 04/12/2006 - 05:34

This is a very good movie, one of my wife's favorite. The scenes in Positano on the beach are not from Positano, but otherwise the scenery is beautiful and pretty good story.A great "chick flick".
Ciao, Dan

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 04/12/2006 - 05:44

[QUOTE=tuscanhills][b]Precis[/b]:
After a bomb destroys a railway carriage, the four survivors repair to the villa of one, Mrs. Delahunty, a writer of romance novels, a woman with a past. The others are an aging British general, a young German man, and Aimee, an American girl orphaned in the blast. As these four strangers recover in Umbria's countryside and become friends, Aimee's uncle, a cold and childless academic who studies red carpenter ants, arrives to fetch her. Mrs. Delahunty fears this may not be in Aimee's best interests, begins to drink heavily, and fails in her attempts to connect with Aimee's uncle. Meanwhile, a persistent detective investigates the blast
[b]Opinion[/b]:
Forget it![/QUOTE]
I too watched this film as I like Maggie Smith but although I watched it through, admit I was a little disappointed as the actual House coulld have been just about anywhere so the film wasn't all that "Italian" after all.