lampic 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.

Philby-3 It is interesting that Chris Cooper should show up in this glossy HBO production (as an uptight American college professor) – he was later to play a leading role in "Adaptation", Charlie Kaufman's brilliant and quirky take on the perils of adapting fine literary properties to the silver screen. What seems to have happened here is that two veteran TV hacks, Richard Loncraine and Hugh Whitemore have got hold of an elegiac novella by the fine Anglo-Irish author William Trevor and turned it into something suitable for Sunday night HBO TV audiences. I was going to say "mush", but that would do a disservice to the cast, who are excellent, and the great location shooting. Definitely though, this film is less that the sum of its parts and much of the poignancy of Trevor's novella has been lost. Yet apart from the final scenes the producers have stuck fairly closely to Trevor's storyline, and Maggie Smith in particular manages to create a character, Emily Delahunty, at least recognizable from the novel, a vibrant but rather hollowed out survivor of a tough and colourful life.It is 1987 (according to the novella, anyway – the film is a bit vaguer about time) and Mrs Delahunty "56 years old" lives in Umbria where she lets out rooms in her magnificent country villa and churns out "Romance novels" a la Barbara Cartland. She is unlucky enough to be caught in a bomb explosion on the Roma-Milano express which kills several passengers in her compartment (though no-one else). Recovering in hospital she invites the survivors back to her villa, where she (and they) are looked after by her staff, including her general factotum, an eccentric Irishman called Quinty (Timothy Spall. The survivors are an elderly English gent, called the General (Ronnie Barker), a young German man with severe burns, Werner (Otlar in the book and played here by Benno Furmann) and Aimee (Emmy Clarke), a beautiful eight year old, who is physically unharmed but unable to speak after her parents have died in the explosion. The healing effects of the landscape and good living restore the spirits of the survivors but then Aimee's uptight pill of an uncle (Chris Cooper) arrives to take her back to America. Mrs Delahunty, haunted both by dreams of her own past and other things, tries desperately to keep Aimee. In the meantime the Italian plod, in the person of Inspector Girotti (Giancarlo Gianini) is investigating the bomb blast, and the finger of suspicion is pointing at Werner.I won't reveal the ending but pretty obviously it is at variance with the book's. If it had followed the book, this would have been a minor gem. As it was made, it is indeed further evidence of the perils of the adaptation of literary properties to film. The acting's faultless, the scenery lovely, but the ending's a cop-out.

cliffs_of_fall Too many reviews here and in print misinterpret My House in Umbria as another sweet movie in the Big Scenery genre, too few emphasize the film's essential theme of fictions and illusions. And yet, are they really illusions when you are aware of weaving them? Emily Delahunty has just experienced something absolutely horrific and over the course of the film, we learn too of her early losses and calamities. Somewhere along the line, she chose happiness; in fact, she chooses it time and again. Her foil in the movie is the Chris Cooper character, a cold man whose scientific mind brooks no illusions. She's persistent with him. She wants to draw him out and draw him in, seducing him into her enchanted world view. She may succeed a little. She'll certainly succeed with anyone who mindfully watches this tale unfold. If this is a fairy tale, it's a stunningly contemporary one. We who rise every morning and meet each day's challenges with some enthusiasm, we who continue to love, work and create in a world threatened by terrorism, live this fairy tale too.

nycritic There are people who do things to escape a life made empty due to their own personal baggage. Mrs Ella Delahunty is such a person. An author of a bookshelf full of romance novels and a victim of a marked past, she suffers a turning point in her life when she gets caught in a terrorist bombing on a train bound to Milan and survives. She is able to take under her wing several other people who were in her cabin at the moment of explosion, among them, a little American girl who was with her parents and a young German man.Under Ella's tutelage, the little girl -- Aimee -- slowly comes out of her shell and both form a bond that is threatened to become severed when Aimee's only surviving member arrives to claim her and take her back to America. Tom Riversmith is from the get-go someone who could care less who Ella Delahunty is and wants nothing more than to return to the States and he hints of someone who would do Aimee more harm than good. As both Mrs Delahunty and Mr Riversmith interact there is a growing tension between the two, and her vivid imagination finds its way to disclosing his true nature.Finding its way in and out of MY HOUSE IN UMBRIA is the appearance of Giancarlo Gianini who plays Inspector Gotti who is investigating the bombing of the train and evidence leads him closer to Mrs Delahunty's house. While crucial to the plot, it's less a mystery of who bombed the train as much as the evolution of both Aimee's and Mrs Delahunty's characters as one begins to open up to communication and the other stops living a life of fantasy and fiction and begins to see things as they truly are.If it weren't for its cute ending, MY HOUSE IN UMBRIA would be perfect -- most of the time, life is less about an ending which satisfies. Even though, this is one of those rare movies that move at its own pace and rely more on the strength of the actors' performances. Maggie Smith, always subtle, makes the most of her Miss Havisham role and the baggage of an incomplete life she has led. As a perfect foil to her, Chris Cooper is also subtle but can only muster disgust -- perhaps because he has his own wounds or simply because he cannot understand Mrs Delahunty. Both are excellent in this intimate film.Broadcast on HBO, MY HOUSE IN UMBRIA was nominated for nine Emmys including Best Actress for 2003 and marks yet another of Dame Maggie Smith's gorgeous, detailed performances.