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Up At The Villa
EMAILPRINTUSA Films / October Films
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 1 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Belinda Haas
W. Somerset Maugham (story)
Directed by: Philip Haas
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 5, 2000
DVD: October 24, 2000
Running Time: 115 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for thematic elements
Starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Sean Penn, and Anne Bancroft
Adapted from a Somerset Maugham novella, the film is set in a 1938 Florence provincial town struggling to maintain its equilibrium as Mussolini's Fascists are consolidating their power.
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The story has old-fashioned characters and situations, and Haas has sensibly filmed it in an old-fashioned way, stressing visual appeal rather than the story's sordid undertones. The acting is excellent, too.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
Is a chamber romance, in that there's nothing grand or sweeping about it, but it's got all the style it needs to go with those glorious Tuscan settings.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
All of Haas' movies have an air of weirdness and dread, and this one is no exception. But it's romantic as well.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It's a corker of a story - a polished yarn full of desire, desperation and despair.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This whole movie is about manners. There is sex and violence, but the movie is not about giving in to them; it's about carrying on as if they didn't exist.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
In the most extreme moments, Thomas hits her career pinnacle.
Read Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
This least affected of their (Haases) movies is also the most dramatically and emotionally convincing.
Read Full Review >Film.com Robert Horton
Scott Thomas and Penn finally develop a bit of unlikely chemistry, aided by the Hitchcockian atmosphere. I found myself rooting for these foolish, pampered, naïve people, and rooting for the movie as well.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
A charmingly mounted, period romantic drama that benefits from the performances of a fine ensemble cast and the lovely location settings of Florence and Tuscany.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It has some wonderful moments and a handful of delicious Maughamian characters.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
It's low-grade Casablanca - an ill-fated love affair, rife with murder and deceit, with World War II as a backdrop and a farewell scene that has something to do with getting to Paris.
Read Full Review >Film.com Tom Keogh
If you're paying close attention, there is reason enough to find Up at the Villa a fascinating experience, almost an experiment in some ways, but it's not a fully realized work of cinema.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Moderately pleasing adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novella.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Michael Sragow
Despite the prestigious talents involved, this is strictly "Minor Piece Theatre."
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ron Stringer
Impressive supporting cast---, in character parts both expanded and invented, enrich the enterprise.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Dennis Lim
The Haases, whose previous films ("Angels and Insects," "The Music of Chance") evinced a remote, unfussy sensibility, are a poor fit for the melodramatic contortions that the story demands.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
Despite his natty wardrobe and calculated sangfroid, Penn doesn't summon up quite the right image.
Read Full Review >Film.com John Hartl
Somewhere around the beginning of Hour Two, the narrative loses momentum, and Pino Donaggio's molasses-thick score begins to drag everything down with it. The ending also lacks the surprise twist that seems to be promised .
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
For all its handsome decor, tasteful restraint and old-fashioned look-and-feel, is a stiff, lacking tension, sizzle, drama, energy, appeal and, finally, purpose.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
There are a few interesting moments, but basically Up at the Villa is dangerously short of sympathetic characters.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
It's fun to see Sean Penn portray a playboy, like Bogart in "Casablanca," who hides his true heart behind a layer of cynicism.
The New York Times Dana Stevens
It reminds us that Italy is beautiful, that Fascism was a dreadful nuisance and that Sean Penn is a great actor, deserving of better vehicles than this vintage lemon.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The characters are so conventional that the movie has nowhere interesting to go, even when a corpse complicates affairs.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The surprise is how tame and passionless it all seems, particularly after director Philip Haas's fevered "Angels and Insects."
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
For novelty value, you can do worse than seeing Sean Penn in a rare chance to don evening-wear on screen, but this isn't a sight to sustain a two-hour haul.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Politics is almost an afterthought in this balky, attenuated film.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
The plot is more convenient than intriguing, the characters more cartoonish than iconic--especially the heroine, who grapples with feminism in a way that should have been fascinating.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
The melodrama of the Maugham original is too simplistic to involve, and the places the film's plot goes are so obvious that even the presence of quality actors can't create sufficient interest.
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
The total lack of sexual chemistry between them doesn't help. Frankly, I'd rather see Scott Thomas play a nun than sit through another one of these turgid romancers.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 2.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Pat C. gave it a 2:
Feature-length soap opera masquerading as a period piece. Sneering opinionated scoundrel Penn plays the sneering opinionated scoundrel. Scott Thomas plays the high-falootin' virtue-heaps-on-me-everytime-I-lie-for-I'm-the-victim-here slut. A painfully substanceless foray not even Bancroft can save. She doesn't even try.
