Tea With Mussolini
Date viewed: June 20, 1999
Location: Chelsea Cinemas, Manhattan
What a lineup of actresses to hop around Tuscany in Italy. Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Maggie Smith are sassy English ladies living the good life in Florence just as WWII was beginning. When Joan's boss puts his son in an orphanage at his second wife's request, the ladies decide to take him in and raise him properly. Oh, the biddies are so full of pep and vinegar. You just have to love them...but I didn't. As the war gets closer and closer, the English expatriates just bury their heads in the sand and think everything will turn out fine. Of course it does in the end (for them, anyway) but their Pollyana attitude was a little too much to take.
Cher takes a turn as a saucy, rich American chanteuse that our English women love to hate. The part seemed written with Cher in mind and she is very capable in the role. I kind of wish her part had been bigger and she had sung that catchy "Believe" song as she was escaping the Nazis. I'll tell you that seeing the hat Cher wears in her first scene is well worth the price of admission. It is FAB-ulous.
Lily Tomlin portrays a lesbian archaeologist that hangs around. I never did figure out what she was doing in the movie.
The little boy the women raise grows to be a courageous, intelligent, rather handsome young man. That's a shocker, all right.
The scenery was very pretty.
Listen to me: If you've got a couple of hours to kill, go ahead and see it. It isn't horrible, but you can certainly wait to see it on video.
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