It's about eight and a half years since we first watched ‘My House in Umbria’, and we had entirely forgotten what it was about. I barely glanced at the box as we put the DVD in to watch last night, and was delighted to hear - and then see - Maggie Smith as the main protagonist. She is playing the part of the successful novelist Emily Delahunte, who lives in a large house in Italy. She’s probably supposed to be in her sixties, or early seventies, and we meet her as she catches a train to Milan, rather at the last minute.
Emily is in a carriage with several other people, and as a writer she naturally glances at them, and wonders about their stories. There’s a young German couple, apparently in the first flushes of romance. There’s an elderly military man (Ronnie Barker) with his daughter, and an American married couple, clearly comfortable with each other, and their daughter Aimee (Emmy Clarke). Emily speaks to Aimee, who is a little reserved, not helped by her mother telling her not to ask so many questions.
Then disaster strikes out of the blue in a shocking moment - and we next see Emily in hospital, with severe injuries. She recovers gradually, and learns that just three of the people from her carriage survived, one of them being Aimee. Aimee has stopped talking, after the trauma, and doesn’t appear to have any relatives so Emily decides to invite her, together with the other two survivors, to stay at her house in Umbria to convalesce, and to find somewhere to process their grief.
At this point we had remembered at least part of the story, and the locations, which are gorgeous. Emily is an excellent hostess, helped by her friend and colleague Quinty (Timothy Spall). The Major (Ronnie Barker), the young German (Benno Fürmann) and Aimee gradually become like a family, and when Aimee starts talking again - albeit with a lot of memory loss - they all rejoice.
Alongside the story of the growing friendship and healing is an investigation into why the attack happened, and also some flashbacks into Emily’s past, which was one of abuse and neglect. This has perhaps led her to be such a warm-hearted and encouraging person - but as there’s no resolution of the past, it felt a bit superfluous and unnecessary. And she’s shown increasingly as a heavy drinker, something, again, which seems out of character and not entirely relevant to the story.
But the acting is excellent. No surprise with Maggie Smith, but we were also very impressed with Ronnie Barker, who is best known for his stand-up comedy routines. He was entirely believable as the Major. In addition, the scenery is stunning, and the story, overall, encouraging and uplifting. There are even one or two moments of humour, in contrast to the main themes. We hadn’t remembered how it would end - there’s a poignant climax as the party begins to disintegrate after one of Emily’s relatives is found - but then there’s an entirely satisfying (if somewhat unlikely) concluding scene that leaves some hope for the future.
All in all, we liked it very much. The rating is 12, which I think is about right. I don’t recall any bad language, and the references that make it 12 rather than PG are so quickly done that they could easily be missed. Even the horrendous violent incident and the gory hospital scenes are sensitively done, mostly implying what happens rather than showing gratuitous detail.
However, since the main characters are of retirement age, and the issues covered are quite mature, I doubt if this film would be of interest to anyone younger than about thirty.
