Themes: Terrorism, Class Differences, Writer's Life
Main Cast: Maggie Smith, Ron Barker, Chris Cooper, Bernard Furmann, Giancarlo Giannini
Release Year: 2003
Country: IT/UK
Run Time: 109 minutes
Plot
Adapted from William Trevor's novella of the same name, the made-for-cable My House in Umbria stars Dame Maggie Smith as Mrs. Emily Delahunty, a British romance novelist living in Italy. While on a shopping excursion to Milan, Emily barely survives a terrorist train bombing. Though she recovers fairly rapidly from her ordeal, three others -- a German journalist a British general and a traumatized orphan girl -- still bear profound physical and emotional wounds. In the spirit of democracy and compassion, the pluck Mrs. Delahunty invites her fellow survivors to recuperate at her lavish Italian estate. This ersatz family gets along famously -- at least until the arrival of the orphan's priggish uncle, American entomologist Tom Riversmith (Chris Cooper), who strongly disapproves of Mrs. Delahunty's carefree lifestyle. Filmed on location in Tuscany and Rome, My House in Umbria debuted May 25, 2003, on the HBO cable service. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
My House in Umbria is a 2003 HBO made-for-television movie, based on the novella of the same name by William Trevor and published along with another novella in the volume Two Lives. The film stars Maggie Smith and was directed by Richard Loncraine.
Emily Delahunty (Maggie Smith) is an eccentric British romance novelist who lives in Umbria in central Italy. One day while travelling, the train she is on is bombed by terrorists. After she wakes up in a hospital, she invites three of the other survivors of the disaster to stay at her Italian villa for recuperation. Of these are The General, a retired British Army veteran, Werner, a young German man, and Aimee, a young American girl who has now become mute after her parents were both killed in the explosion.
As the group recovers from their ordeal (in which The General lost his daughter, and Werner lost his girlfriend and suffered considerable burns to his arm), the explosion is being investigated by Inspector Girotti, a local policeman. Responding to the warmth and kindness of Mrs Delahunty and the others, Aimee begins to speak again, while the local authorities seek out any relatives who might be able to take her in. They eventually locate her uncle, Tom Riversmith, a university professor in the US. He agrees to take Aimee back to the US to live with his wife and himself, though they have little time for raising children and are particularly concerned about trying to raise a child who has been through such a traumatic experience.
Mrs Delahunty works hard to find common ground with Aimee's uncle and eventually convinces him to leave Aimee with her in Italy rather than taking the child back to America to a loveless home. Meanwhile, Inspector Girotti discovers that Werner was involved in the terrorist attack on the train.
The plot departs substantially from that of Trevor's sombre novella.
