Up at the Villa (2000)

So much average

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

It's the late 1930s around Florence. Sir Edgar Swift (James Fox) is the distinguished governor of Bengal who has come to court the widow Mary Panton (Kristin Scott Thomas). She loved her husband as he turned into a drunken gambler who squandered all of their money. Sir Swift proposes to her and she promises an answer upon his return. He leaves her with a gun as he fears a deteriorating security situation. She is hounded by Lucky Leadbetter (Derek Jacobi) who is after fresh-faced English young men. Princess San Ferdinando (Anne Bancroft) is a woman who had many flings and lots of connections. She introduces Mary to playboy Rowley Flint (Sean Penn) at a dinner party. Italian fascist Beppino Leopardi doesn't like Rowley. She rejects Rowley's advances and kicks him out of her car. She almost runs over Karl Richter (Jeremy Davies) who was a bad musician at the party. He's a refugee escaping the Nazis after organizing resistance as a student in Austria. She invites him back to her villa and they spend the night together. Leopardi imposes new restrictions on the foreign presence. Karl becomes unruly and Mary pulls out the gun. Karl takes it away and shoots himself with it. Rowley helps her dispose of the body.Sean Penn somehow doesn't fit this time and this story. He never disappears into this role. He sticks out in this period piece like a sore thumb. Also the story lacks tension. There is some limited tension with Leopardi but that's resolved well before the end. The romance doesn't have any intensity. This should be a lot better. I do like Jeremy Davies' performance in a minor role.

Kirsten Scott-Thomas is electrifying, sensual and beautiful, albeit against an unspontaneous and wooden Sean Penn, whose character, and thus the relationship with Scott-Thomas, were unduly constricted by the novella that inspired the movie. Were this not the case, a magnificent film might have emerged.Overcoming the shortcomings are the dialogue, exceptional casting (Anne Bancoft is terrific and Massimo Ghini is machismo, charming and threatening -- think James Mason), Firenze, and inspiring photography and costuming, all embraced by a charming and captivating story.If you find Scott-Thomas to be an English Grace Kelly, and love the pre-WWII period in Italy, this unappreciated jewel is a feast.

Well, after reading several comments, it has become more than apparent to me that the majority didn't like it, especially Sean Penn's role. I, for one, enjoyed the film. Perhaps it's not the best movie ever made, perhaps it's not Penn's greatest performance, I'll give you that. However, I thought the movie was fun, enjoyable to watch. I suppose I wasn't looking for an Oscar candidate when I picked it up because the premise of the movie itself doesn't lend itself the traditonal epics or emotional dramas that are favored by the Academy. Mysteries are a favorite of mine and so the plot kept me interested and, to another point, I thought Sean Penn's performance was wonderful considering the role. Yes, it was understated which I found wonderful, and yes, after a momentary pause to think, the romantic relationship between Kristin Scott Thomas and Sean Penn seemed a bit odd, they don't seem to fit well together in that context. However, I thought the movie was all around just fun and Sean Penn is so utterably watchable in this movie and so charming and seductive that I would've followed him to the ends of the earth, guarantees or not

I'm intrigued by the comment below about how rich Maugham's story is - because I quite like Maugham. I also like Anne Bancroft, Kristen Scott-Thomas and James Fox, so selecting this movie from my video rental store was easy. Unfortunately, something must have happened in writing the screenplay. *** SPOILERS ***One of the more selfless and realistically portrayed acts of love I've ever seen takes place toward the end of this movie. James Fox's character reveals how very difficult and long a climb it has been to now be about to be appointed Governor of Bengal, one of the largest of India's states. With his sigh, his body movement, we sense the dedication, the diligence, the very effort it has taken to climb the "greasy pole". Fox is not a peer - we sense no great hereditary estate. He has been knighted for his painstaking work and is apparently wealthy through his very industry.Fox is promptly informed by a poor widow to whom he has proposed, that during the very weekend she was to consider his proposal: a) her view of charity was to sleep with a refugee ("I thought I'd do him good -he was just so miserable" is the amazing explanation), b) the refugee proceeded to kill himself with the gun Fox had lent her for protection, c) the widow arranged to hide the body in the woods with the assistance of a cad who despises Fox, d) Fox's gun and the cad were held by the police, but e) the widow managed to retrieve his gun and the cad by rifling through her friend's desk for material to blackmail the authorities. She tells Fox that she can understand if he would like to withdraw his proposal. Fox's reaction? Not only does he remain keen on marriage with her, but he would freely give up his career in doing so because he loves more than life, and the scandal (if revealed while he were Governor) of his wife's witless fornication causing a stranger's suicide would make the British government's task in India more difficult. To Fox's astonishing act of love, forgiveness and self-abnegation, the widow says she has never loved Fox, that his attitude is "weak" because they "need him in India" (one suspects she simply wishes to be the Governor's wife at that moment), that he misunderstands the cad who would never breathe a word of the scandal, and that she turns down his marriage proposal because the scandal has caused her somehow to become a woman of the world, rather than the child ("you're used to giving me sweets") who wanted to marry him. However, as the widow, Scott-Thomas had seemed anything but a child. She had spoken before about the horror of marriage to one without virtue - about the twelve year long marriage she had endured in which her husband had gambled and drunk away their money, whored his way through countless women, and finally been killed while speeding. She had spoken of her dread of continuing to live on the generosity of strangers. These aren't a child's sentiments but an adult's sagacity.To whom then does Scott-Thomas turn after the selflessness of Fox's love? To whom does she turn to avoid the insecurity of which she spoke as the bane of her previous marriage? To a married man who says he can offer "no guarantees" of his love or faithfulness except that he will not return to his wife, who asks her to simply take the train to "anywhere", and about whom we know only that he takes waitresses and servants frequently to bed, is disliked by the authorities, and assisted her to deceive the authorities to help her.At the end, she says to the cad, "I was yours when you first sat down". Well, welcome to misery. Sorry, I know it's the movies, but when a movie ends this badly, with the heroine choosing the charmless married void in lieu of the paragon of sacrificial love, security and virtue, I have a difficult time liking the movie. I found Sean Penn's character anything but likeable - he had a sort of neutered quality - making puerile fraternity boy jokes about sleeping with the 60+ old princess, asking "why" of a government official's decision in a crowded antechamber and shrugging weakly before sitting down (when asked if satisfied with the official's bogus explanation). I suspect the movie has taken the story's tragic ending and tried to torture it into a happy one. The same woman who presumably acted on impulse by marrying a weak man and suffered a disastrous marriage for it,the same woman who acted on impulse to seduce a poor refugee and thereby set in train the events that killed him, is indeed the woman who turns away from a man willing to throw away everything for which he worked out of love for her, for a man who says "hey, no guarantees, babe". Tragedy will undoubtedly again ensue - the little painted grin painted on the protagonist as she heads toward the bar car, can't mask it. *** SPOILERS END ***I disliked the movie.