★ 9 / 10
I have always been a sucker for a
Peter McGinn
I have always been a sucker for a good chick flick. A wonderful cast bring to life a novel about four women who rent an Italian castle to escape their dreary…
I have always been a sucker for a good chick flick. A wonderful cast bring to life a novel about four women who rent an Italian castle to escape their dreary lives. I won’t list all seven names of the performers who make this so great. Even a couple of characters I wanted to dislike were given enough depth so that I cared about everyone in the end. It moves from one to another or to a group interacting with each other.
I have read the old book this is based on and like a couple changes they made to it. I just realized as I looked this up that it was a remake of a 1935 early talkie version.
It is a quiet and unassuming movie, so much so that I was a little surprised it was nominated for a few Oscars, and won some Golden a Globe awards.
It took me years to track down a DVD copy of this and retire the old grainy VHS version I had.
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★ 8 / 10
There is some magic in this simple enchantment
bbhlthph
Two thirds of nearly 2,000 IMDb users who have voted on this film have rated it at 8, 9 or 10 and one user reports wearing out six videotapes (Was this a…
Two thirds of nearly 2,000 IMDb users who have voted on this film have rated it at 8, 9 or 10 and one user reports wearing out six videotapes (Was this a record, or merely a faulty VCR?). Although the film is primarily intended as a period piece it clearly has a quite unusual fascination. But for some reason I imagined it as largely whimsy and until recently never felt the urge to watch it. My mind was changed by Elizbeth Von Arnim's original book. My wife loves reading but her sight no longer allows her to read much so she borrowed it in talking book form. Such books are usually irritating to a companion who is busy with other things, but I gradually came to appreciate that this one was seductively soothing, although in no way syrupy, and was also very well written. I realised my wife would enjoy watching the film, and so decided to buy her the videotape. I am now very glad that I did, and would certainly recommend its purchase to anyone else who appreciates a quiet reflective work with no fireworks but with well constructed character development and a very successful pre-Mussolini Italian atmosphere. The story is set in the immediate post WW1 period and starts with two married London ladies who decide to pool their savings and enjoy a holiday together, away from their families, in a rented villa in Italy. Force of circumstances lead to this couple being joined by two others with very different characters and backgrounds. Its theme is essentially no more than the interactions that take place as their holiday progresses, not only between these four very disparate mature ladies, but also with the occasional male visitor. If you want action, thrills, dramatic sex scenes, natural or man-made disasters, or Harlequin style romances this would not be the film for you. But IMDb users have collectively and very emphatically demonstrated that none of these are necessary for a film to prove highly rewarding to watch, and if you care to give it a try you may, as I did, come to rank it among your much loved films.
It is fairly rare for me to watch a film of a book with which I am already familiar. In many cases I find this takes some of the pleasure away from watching the film, but here there is such a strong visual appeal in the setting that I actually found my pleasure augmented by the anticipation of seeing the next segment of the book, effectively unrolled before my eyes. (Perhaps Italy itself has some part in this, the last time I had this experience was when I was watching tales from Boccaccio's Decameron on TV.) Generally films of books tend to increase the dramatic level of the original work to ensure that the filmed version has an even wider appeal, but here if anything it is reduced in order to keep the viewers attention on the gradual character development rather than on any background events. This works very well, although changes from the book are few and basically the film remains true to the original story. Great credit is due to the Director, Mike Newell, and all members of the cast, particularly those well known British Actresses who play the four principal ladies.
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85%
TOMATOMETER
· 33 reviews
84%
AUDIENCE
· 5K ratings
7.3/10
7.9K
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Torrent includes year as (0000) rather than (1991)