Tea With Mussolini

It seems that a group of haughty, older Englishwomen, known as the Scorpioni, had set up residence in this beautiful city and had by their manner defied the ever more powerful and dangerous fascists of the day. They were led by Benito Mussolini.

One of the women, Lady Hester (Maggie Smith), had travelled to see Mussolini and had extracted a spurious promise from him that he would leave the Scorpioni alone to live in Florence, in fine style, in spite of the developing war. She had her photograph taken with him and uses this to bargain with the local brown shirts.

Now this could have been the stuff of fine drama I suppose but that obviously wasn't the director's intention. It seems that the stupid old English women abroad are looked upon with particular benevolence by Zeffirelli, which might have been in fashion in film some decades ago, but surely those sort of political blinkers are way out of date now.

And after all it was women like these greedy, Colonialist, condescending permanent holiday makers, along with their Italian counterparts, who brewed the nasty political stew that allowed fascists like Mussolini to gain power and cause havoc and misery. These people aren't the stuff of any comedy other than the black variety.

But what if we forget the political high handedness of Tea With Mussolini. Are there redeaming features?

A cast which includes Joan Plowright, Judi Dench, Cher, Maggie Smith and Lily Tomlin must weave some magic and it does. Plowright takes center stage for much of the film as a kindly benefactor for the young boy who must have represented Zeffirelli.

Judi Dench rarely is less than entertaining and does particularly well as the nutty, dishevelled artist of the group, in spite of an exceedingly silly script.

Maggie Smith just scowls and and acts stupid. Smith can do this exceedingly well. Tomlin's well worn face is fascinating and Cher again shows how good an actress she is, but the story is full of holes of course.

Simple and dumbly realised plot details let the film down again and again. Tea With Mussolini has about as much weight in the film scheme of things as the feather heavy sandbags the old biddies easily hoist about, supposedly to protect precious murals.

Florence and San Gimignano, both beautiful cities, are lovingly portayed and if the politics don't upset you, they won't for most, then Tea With Mussolini will almost survive as a fairly competent companion to films like Mediteranio and half a dozen of the Merchant Ivory films.