|
TEA WITH MUSSOLINI Send This Review to a Friend
I wouldn't have wanted to have tea with Mussolini, who not many years after the era in
which this film was set was a corpse hanging upside down and being battered by angry
crowds at a gas station in Milan. But I'd love to have tea anytime with Joan Plowright,
Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, the grand actresses playing members of the haughty
British social colony nicknamed the "Scorpioni" in Florence and San Gimignano just
before and during World War II. And if Cher also turned up, so much the better.
Director Franco Zeffirelli's glowing fictional memoir based on his autobiography and co-
scripted with John Mortimer is not always credible, but it is a lush, romanticized period
piece enriched by the showy performances of these fabulous actresses assembled in one
movie for the first time. The pleasure lies in enjoying their over-the-top acting, and the
Italian scenery captured by cinematographer David Watkin adds further splendor.
Joan Plowright plays the dedicated, kind-hearted Mary who looks after Luca, the young
boy (well played by Charlie Lucas) whose unwed mother is dead and whose Italian father
shunts him aside as an embarrassment to his wife. Plowright provides the film's center of
warmth. Judi Dench is Arabella, dedicated to the enjoyment and preservation of art.
Maggie Smith is the most impressive of the three in the role of Lady Hester, the snobbish
widow of a diplomat who lives under the illusion that even war won't change her social
position and the trappings of her privileged life, particularly after Mussolini promises her
at tea that she can rely on his protection no matter what. An empty commitment, of
course. Smith dispenses enjoyably bitchy remarks, mostly at the expense of Americans,
whom she disdains. "They can even ruin ice cream," she sneers.
Cher holds her own in this celebrated company as Elsa, a rich American who lives on the
money of the men of her various liaisons. She's flamboyant, demanding and kind, but
underneath the bravado she is vulnerable, an easy target for a scheming, fascist lover after
her money. When the English ladies are rounded up and confined when war breaks out,
she secretly demonstrates her compassion. The one actress shortchanged is Lily Tomlin,
who plays a caricature of a lesbian in an embarrassing poorly written role.
The film breaks down in credibility after Luca, now grown up and played by Baird
Wallace, becomes involved in the resistance. The melodramatics increase, culminating in
an unlikely scene of the women taking drastic action to stop the Nazis, retreating from the
advancing Allies, from perpetrating a cultural atrocity. The good ladies would have been
mowed down in two seconds.
Nonetheless, there is so much style to Zeffirelli's film and the acting by the women is so
appealing that "Tea With Mussolini" makes for a most welcome, enjoyable and at times
moving experience. An MGM release.
|