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DVD REVIEW FOR
"UP AT THE VILLA"

(2000) (Kristin Scott Thomas, Sean Penn) (PG-13)

Length Screen Format(s) Languages Subtitles Sound Sides
115 minutes Letterbox (1.78:1)
16x9 - Widescreen
English English
French
Spanish
Dolby Digital 5.1 1

PLOT & PARENTAL REVIEW

AUDIO/VIDEO ELEMENTS:
Other than a few bits of pixelation that certainly aren't distracting, the image quality here looks great. Appropriately lush-looking and featuring vibrant colors and incredibly sharp images (particularly in the brightly lit, outdoor scenes), the picture is often fabulous. The audio, while mostly dialogue driven, does contain enough natural sound effects to keep that part of the presentation from being too staid.
EXTRAS:
  • Scene selection/Jump to any scene.
  • Theatrical trailer.
  • Cast & Crew filmographies and biographies.
  • COMMENTS:
    While the famous battles and Holocaust related issues obviously get the most attention as far as films set in WWII are concerned - essentially because they have the most recognizable and easy to present conflict and drama -- other pieces of the war are just as intriguing.

    One of them is the pre-war activity that took place in Italy as Mussolini jockeyed his country via fascism while European expatriates reacted to the sudden changing tide. Franco Zeffirelli's 1999 film, "Tea With Mussolini," obviously used that as the underlying plot for its story, although the results were only moderately interesting.

    Now "Up at the Villa" follows suit, although it really only uses the historical context of Italy's progressive mutation as an interesting backdrop for its story. Based on the 1940 novella by W. Somerset Maugham (who also penned "Of Human Bondage" and "The Razor's Edge"), the film is a tale of the aftereffects of a one-night stand, and thus comes off as something of a pre-WWII version of "Fatal Attraction," where the jilted lover isn't happy with the liaison later being deemed as a singular event.

    Featuring solid performances from its cast, gorgeous scenery and "Masterpiece Theater" type settings, as well as an interesting, if not terribly intriguing overall plot, the film is certainly easy to watch. That said, it never quite turns into the great romantic thriller/drama hybrid that it's seemingly aiming to be.

    It certainly turns into something far different than how it begins, which is as a well-made, if somewhat staid period romantic drama. As crafted by the husband and wife filmmaking team of Philip (the director) and Belinda Haas (the writer and editor) - who were responsible for 1995's "Angels and Insects" (also starring this film's leading lady) - the story unfolds at a leisurely pace as we learn the necessary particulars about the main characters.

    Due to the terrific cast, the interplay between them, and the intelligent dialogue they're given to speak, the film comes off as moderately intriguing as we wonder where the story's going to lead us. Then, quite unexpectedly, but credibly, the film suddenly shifts gears and turns into a "what hath we wrought" plot where the characters turn a bad event into something worse and then try to bury it and the ensuing problems that then arise.

    That certainly jacks up the proceedings and initially makes things more interesting, but the film never quite manages to hit and/or maintain its full stride down the homestretch of becoming a completely satisfactory film. Of course, that isn't to suggest that it turns into a bad film, but the fact that it lacks any real energy - in either the romance or thriller departments -- unnecessarily grounds the picture.

    What makes it work, however, is the casting of those main characters and the performances delivered by the actors and actresses inhabiting them. Kristin Scott Thomas ("Random Hearts," "The English Patient"), who's edging toward becoming typecast as "the other woman" due to the nature of many of the characters she's played, is quite good in the role, bringing a clearly defined intelligence mixed with credible loneliness and uncertainty to the part.

    Previous Oscar nominee Sean Penn ("Sweet and Lowdown," "Dead Man Walking") continues to impress with his performance here as a character who turns out to have more depth than initially imagined, making it ever more difficult to picture that he once played (albeit brilliantly) the dimwitted surfer dude Jeff Spicoli in "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" nearly twenty years ago.

    Meanwhile, five-time Oscar nominee Anne Bancroft ("The Graduate" and a victory for "The Miracle Worker") and James Fox ("Mickey Blue Eyes," "A Passage to India") bring the proper "old school" air to the proceedings, while Jeremy Davies ("Saving Private Ryan," "The Locusts") and Massimo Ghini ("Tea With Mussolini," "The Truce") believably inhabit the film's more volatile characters.

    Overall, the film will probably play differently to different viewers. Some will be enraptured by the old style performances and plot, whereas others may find the film never truly escaping the staid trappings that overlay the proceedings, no matter the sudden chance of the plot from period romance to would-be thriller.

    As far as the disc itself, the picture is often stunning and the audio delivers what's expected of it. Although the film was barely noticed at the box office, its lack of numerous supplemental materials (we get a trailer and some onscreen textual descriptions of the cast and crew) is somewhat surprising in this day and age of every bell and whistle being added to even the worst or financially unsuccessful films.

    Buy Up at the Villa on DVD today!

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