My House in Umbria (2003)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Made from a novel by Irish writer William Trevor (whom I need to check out) "My House in Umbria" is about a group of train passengers who survive bomb attack.None of these people knew each other from before and as they recover in Italian hospital, gentle eccentric romance novel writer Emily Delahunty (Maggie Smith) decides to take this little bruised group in her Umbria house - she lives alone in a beautiful country side house and loves the idea that perhaps nature and silence would heal the wounds of this unexplained, brutal attack. Her naturally strong imagination is inspired by these new friends and who they might have been before they boarded the train. There is an old general (Ronnie Barker), German journalist (Benno Fürmann) and a little American girl (Emmy Clarke), all of them lost people who traveled with them - the little girl is in fact mute now from a shock of losing her parents. The cast is excellent but it is Maggie Smith who stands head and shoulders above everybody else as her character (sweet, lonely soul tormented by memories) tries to help people who only yesterday were strangers on a train and suddenly had turned into friends connected with survival. Smith is very much like Blanche du Bois in a sense that she refuses to see bad things in life and focus only on positive. Her own life was all but romantic as we slowly find out, nevertheless she writes love stories with happy endings and creates her own reality, believes in dreams and astrology - the character of Thomas Riversmith (Chris Cooper) is her direct opposite as American scientist who has different outlook at life, laughs at her little eccentrics and in general has no patience for people like her. As Mrs.Delahunty slowly finds more about her guests, we also find more about them and about her - all of them in their way help to each other but its Italian countryside that truly heals everybody. What a beautiful, beautiful movie.

I came to this film fairly late. Anyone who loves Maggie Smith or enjoys movies with romantic European settings should have an opportunity to understand what they are getting. Beautiful settings, nice camera-work, believable characters, nicely stitched together story until we get close to the end when the main character (was this the directors intention???) reveals that she has a serious problem with alcohol, so much so that it puts a bizarre & uncomfortable twist to a scene in the uncle's bedroom in which we see a boozed up post-cougar woman who appears to expose herself & throw herself at an unwilling & terrified victim. A whole scene that is oiled by the bottle of booze she is cradling. My main question at the end of the film is why this uncle would surrender his beautiful niece to the tender mercies of an old woman who smokes too much & is clearly an alcoholic with a load of unresolved issues. A strange & unsettling ending.

I will not attempt to summarize the plot - only to express my gratitude for giving Dame Maggie a meaty role - I dangled upon her every word and expression. And thank God for a movie with characters over the age of 30. Thanks for giving those of us who love Italy a free vacation.Now tell me, those of you who have criticisms - would you or would you not (if this were real) like to spend a week or even a year with Mrs. Delahunty in her villa? I don't think her prescient dreams, meddling, snooping, rambling reminiscences nor her grappa drinking would bore me a bit. In fact I would join in with wine, gin and tonic and grappa and even a (gasp) cigarette!A slow Umbrian repast each evening under the candle-lit wisterias -- ahh now that is savoring life. And this movie teaches other lessons of life as well if you choose to listen.

This film would immediately appeal to anyone addicted to Maggie Smith and the idyllic Italian countryside of Umbria, but it has unexpected delights to offer in its unassuming, almost art-house, flavour, and the low-key, but affecting, performances of excellent actors Timothy Spall and Ronnie Barker. Chris Cooper is rather wooden, but his academic, unemotional character casts a strong contrast to the hapless vagaries of Maggie Smith's Emily Delahuntey, and therefore works well.Suspension of disbelief is required for the over-imaginative plot, almost out of one of Emily's romance novels. But the pleasure of such a film is simple, and simple pleasures can entertain as much as the richer, more complex enjoyment of films it might be compared with such as 'Tea With Mussolini' (which, of course, is a much fuller film in terms of plot, characters, script, and drama). 'Enchanted April' also comes to mind as another film where the Italian countryside is almost a character of the film and much more than a backdrop.A very pleasant interlude for a winter's afternoon, or Spring evening, and Maggie Smith is as mannered and original as ever. I especially loved her flowing clothes, which suited her and her character very well.