Up at the Villa . Tucson Weekly . 07-03-00

Up at the Villa

DIRECTED BY: Philip Haas

REVIEWED: 07-03-00

No surprise to find Kristin Scott Thomas' furtive smile and limpid blue-green eyes as the centerpiece of this 1930s-era "all's fair in love and war" story. Thomas plays Mary, a widowed Englishwoman who must decide between the safety of marriage and the recklessness of love (represented here by Sean Penn, in the role of American cad Rowley Flint). Based on the tale by W. Somerset Maugham, this rule-breaking novel makes for a somewhat tepid screen adaptation, the condensed intrigues and plot twists of which are more maddening than romantic to the modern mindset. Still, few things are lovelier on film than Italian churches, country villas and gardens, or more nostalgic than steam trains, evening gowns and the fragile virtue of the second sex (yawn). Maugham's subversive humor--if you look for it--stands firm as the Nazis draw near, making this historic fiction as picturesque and mildly amusing as the aristocratic society it mocks. In the end, however, it's neither murder, moonlight nor love-making that lingers in memory, but the droll lines of the American dowager Princess San Ferdinando (Anne Bancroft), and row upon row of unforgettable tomatoes. (A far better effort, on video, is Maugham's The Razor's Edge, starring Bill Murray "in his first serious role.")

--Mari Wadsworth

Other Films by Philip Haas
Angels and Insects

Film Vault Suggested Links
The Bed You Sleep In
Secrets & Lies
Hard

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