By EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating: * * * )
Tea without Mussolini? Il Duce doesn't make an appearance but Somerset Maugham's novella about British expats in Florence, enjoying the days before the Second World War, shares much with Franco Zeffirelli's 1999 movie.
Mary Panton (Kristin Scott Thomas), a widow whose husband drank
and gambled their money, then died, is renting a villa outside the Tuscan capital. Sir Edgar Swift (James Fox) has travelled from Cannes to propose marriage. Soon he will be governor of Bengal; Mary would lead Calcutta society. Mary confides in her best friend, the Principessa (Anne Bancroft), an American who owes all to a rich, dead Italian husband.
Mary asks for time to think. In a restaurant that night, she sits next to a brash, rich American, Rowley Flint (Sean Penn). He wants to spend the night with her; she says no. On the way home she picks up a violinist she saw earlier, an Austrian refugee from Hitler named Karl, and sleeps with him.
Because of where and when this movie is set, there is An Event. Mary turns to Rowley to help her out of a jam. The Fascist Party chief threatens Rowley. Mary is prepared to betray a friend to help him. And Sir Edgar returns for his answer.
Very well played, beautifully filmed and altogether too well-behaved for its own good.
Running time: 115 mins
Rental: Now
