Dir. Richard Loncraine, 2003, USA, 103 mins
Cast: Dame Maggie Smith, Ronnie Barker, Chris Cooper, Timothy Spall
After the shocking events of 9/11, any film that features terrorism will inevitably be expected to tackle the issue in detail. Although the plot of My House in Umbria is set into motion by an act of terrorism, where a bomb on a train kills and wounds some of the passengers, the film does not explore the reasons behind this act in any detail. To use a phrase coined by Alfred Hitchcock, the terrorist incident My House in Umbria is a macguffin; a plot device that sets the events of the film in motion. For instance, in Hitchcock's North by Northwest, we never discover which organisation the villainous spies worked for, because the film is primarily about the change of Cary Grant's leading man from a casual, flippant playboy into a conscious-stricken romantic hero. Similarly in My House in Umbria, we never get discover which organisation is behind the explosion on the train, or why the people in this organisation have chosen terrorism as a course of action, because the film is more concerned with the life of Mrs Delahunty (Smith), a romantic novelist and the film's central character.
Mrs Delahunty is a free spirit who breezes through life, living and working in a picturesque villa in rural Umbria, Italy. When an explosion occurs on board a train that she is travelling on, the incident understandably shocks and upsets her. However, Mrs Delahunty is a resilient woman and is determined to get through this traumatic incident. She also wants to help her fellow survivors get over the bombing and invites them back to her villa to recuperate. The survivors include Aimee, an orphaned American girl (Emmy Clarke), an aging English General (Barker) and a young German man (Benno Fürmann). All of them are grateful to Mrs Delahunty and accept the invitation to stay at her villa. Although the adults seem to come to terms with the bombing relatively quickly, Aimee is in shock and does not speak. Mrs Delahunty decides to take the young girl under her wing, but when Aimee's uncle, Thomas Riversmith (Cooper), shows up to take her back to America , Mrs Delahunty is concerned that the remote and serious Uncle is not a suitable guardian for the child. Despite Mrs Delahunty's attempts to befriend Riversmith, he fails to respond to her kindness and is irritated by her carefree attitude towards life. Mrs Delahunty sets out to discover more about Riversmith and also starts to delve into her own past and re-examine her life .
Although My House in Umbria is set in the present day, the settings and the characters look as if they belong in the 1920s or 30s, or even the 19th century. Starting off like any number of sedate costume dramas, the bombing comes as a startling slap in the face of the characters and the audience. The spectre of terrorism penetrating the polished veneer of a Merchant Ivory-like world threatens to shake up the drama considerably. However, contemporary politics and the issues that surround the bombing barely feature, and at one point, Mrs Delahunty states that she's not interested in politics. This may incense some people, who expect films after 9/11 (particularly films set in and/or financed by the US) to tackle what is arguably the key concern of many people in the world today. William Trevor's novella is the basis for the film and although it may have been written before 9/11 and not intended as a story that focuses on terrorism, some may think that the film should have concentrated more on the terrorist issue.
The scenes depicting Mrs Delahunty's theories about her guests are fairly amusing, showing us how she automatically uses her writers' creative side to assess a person's character, inventing a generic back-story in the vein of the romantic pulp fiction that she creates. However, we also get brief glimpses into Mrs Delahunty's own memories, which hint at an adolescence that involved abuse and prostitution. Are these memories real, invented or a mixture of both? The film never gives us an answer, but these moments are effective because they suggest that Mrs Delahunty is a far more troubled character than her confident demeanour would suggest. Less effective is the overemphatic music score and unconvincingly upbeat ending. The conclusion may be a product of Mrs Delahunty's imagination, but it still feels like a far too tidy way in which to tie up a story as complex as hers.
Maggie Smith is excellent as Mrs Delahunty, revealing the bruised but resilient woman under the breezy, carefree exterior, while Chris Cooper as Riversmith is equally good, and the film's best scenes are between them. Riversmith and Delahunty are polar opposites who see the world in wildly divergent ways. Where Riversmith is interested in science and facts, Delahunty prefers to daydream and feed her imagination. Mrs Delahunty is a fantasist who wears her heart on her sleeve, while Riversmith is a pragmatist who has no time for Mrs Delahunty's flights of fancy. Mrs Delahunty gets a mild comeuppance of sorts for her snooping when, upon eavesdropping on Riversmith's phone conversation to his wife in America, she overhears the quiet American giving a brutally frank assessment of her character to his wife.
The rest of the cast is effective, even though Smith and Cooper dominate proceedings. Although it's a pleasure to see Ronnie Barker on the big screen, his General at times comes close to being a caricature of an old army officer rather than a flesh and blood creation. The same goes for Timothy Spall, another welcome face, but here essaying a rather stereotypical servant role as Quinty (and employing a surprisingly unconvincing Irish accent). Giancarlo Giannini, who plays an Inspector who is investigating the bombing of the train, is also a memorable presence, but his role in the drama is too brief, and his part is very reminiscent of a similar, more memorable role that he played in Hannibal .
Overall, My House in Umbria is gentle, inoffensive film that's unlikely to captivate an audience expecting something radically new in this genre. However, it's still worth a look to see the fine work of Smith and Cooper, whose scenes together are full of underlying tension, and which make this conventional drama come to life.
Martyn Bamber
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