Up At The Villa

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.

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.

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.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's a corker of a story - a polished yarn full of desire, desperation and despair.

Miami Herald Phoebe Flowers

A refined, tasteful film about pure, hard lust.

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.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

In the most extreme moments, Thomas hits her career pinnacle.

Variety Derek Elley

This least affected of their (Haases) movies is also the most dramatically and emotionally convincing.

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.

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It has some wonderful moments and a handful of delicious Maughamian characters.

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.

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.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Moderately pleasing adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novella.

Salon.com Michael Sragow

Despite the prestigious talents involved, this is strictly "Minor Piece Theatre."

LA Weekly Ron Stringer

Impressive supporting cast---, in character parts both expanded and invented, enrich the enterprise.

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.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

Despite his natty wardrobe and calculated sangfroid, Penn doesn't summon up quite the right image.

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 .

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.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

There are a few interesting moments, but basically Up at the Villa is dangerously short of sympathetic characters.

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.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The characters are so conventional that the movie has nowhere interesting to go, even when a corpse complicates affairs.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The surprise is how tame and passionless it all seems, particularly after director Philip Haas's fevered "Angels and Insects."

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.

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

Genteel but ultimately unnecessary entertainment.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Politics is almost an afterthought in this balky, attenuated film.

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.

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.

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.