Improbably, this lightly autobiographical WWII memoir has become (by default?) the only Franco Zeffirelli film that remains watchable.* A delicious story, if hardly a great film, Zeffirelli found superb collaborators in writer John Mortimer (whose work here is like a precursor to Julian Fellowes, particularly GOSFORD PARK/’01) and cinematographer David Watkin, cleaning up much of Zeffirelli’s colorful excesses. ‘Luca,’ the film’s Zeffirelli character, is an illegitimate kid in ‘30s Florence, a veritable orphan after his married father refuses to take him in, left in the care of British secretary Joan Plowright. But it ‘takes a village’ to raise him, a village of eccentric British ex-pats, all delusionally hanging fast in Florence as World War closes in, leaving them enemy aliens, even Maggie Smith’s stupidly stout-hearted widow of a past ambassador to Italy. By turns idiotic, willful, funny & loving, the crew, which includes Judi Dench & American contingent Lily Tomlin (hopelessly out of her acting league vs. the Brits) and Cher (uneven, but often fascinating as a oft-married, art-collecting rich Jewish-American with a gorgeous, if shady, Italian lover), endure all humiliations. Plot & peregrinations by turns surprising, touching & delightful, with growing theatrics & heroics as war takes its toll. Zeffirelli loses control of his material at times, the scenes with Mussolini don’t really play, and he has trouble organizing simple moves. But it all works out in the end thanks to superb character writing & playing by Mortimer and the Dames. Just hang tough thru the obvious bits.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Brave souls are welcome to revisit Zeffirelli’s once lauded Shakespeare reductions: SHREW/’67; R&J/’68; HAMLET/’90 for confirmation. And naturally, Zeffirelli fouled his own nest, following up this rare success with an irredeemable second personal memoir, CALLAS FOREVER/’02.
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