Country: IT/GB
Technical: col 116m
Director: Franco Zeffirelli
Cast: Cher, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Lily Tomlin
Synopsis:
Die-hard English colonists of Florence during the thirties and forties include a restorer of paintings, a rescuer of an orphaned boy and an aloof Ambassador's widow confirmed in her dislike of a beautiful American Jewess.
Review:
At times recalling other films rather uncomfortably (A Room with a View, La Vita è Bella), Zeffirelli's autobiographical character drama does settle into its own nostalgic groove and produces moments of true sentiment among the cheesier ones (Michael Williams's consul has to shake his head in disbelief more than once too often). The very real horrors of the war are however kept too cosily at bay for modern tastes, and there is some lazy film-making here.
Country: IT/GB
Technical: col 116m
Director: Franco Zeffirelli
Cast: Cher, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Lily Tomlin
Synopsis:
Die-hard English colonists of Florence during the thirties and forties include a restorer of paintings, a rescuer of an orphaned boy and an aloof Ambassador's widow confirmed in her dislike of a beautiful American Jewess.
Review:
At times recalling other films rather uncomfortably (A Room with a View, La Vita è Bella), Zeffirelli's autobiographical character drama does settle into its own nostalgic groove and produces moments of true sentiment among the cheesier ones (Michael Williams's consul has to shake his head in disbelief more than once too often). The very real horrors of the war are however kept too cosily at bay for modern tastes, and there is some lazy film-making here.
