A Month by the Lake

Starring:Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Fox, Uma Thurman, Alida Valli, Carlo Cartier, Alessandro Gassman, Natalia Bizzi, Frances Nacman, Paolo Lombardi, Riccardo Rossi, Sonia Martinelli, Veronica Wells, Carlotta Bresciani, Bianca Tognocchi
Director: John Irvin
Studio: Miramax
Product Type: DVD

Description

Enjoy the fun of this sexy comedy winner! At a luxurious lakeside resort, an attractive red-headed guest (Vanessa Redgrave -- THE PLEDGE; GIRL, INTERRUPTED) has her eye on a handsome, well-to-do bachelor. But when he's more interested in a beautiful young flirt (Uma Thurman -- KILL BILL, VATEL), the mischievous redhead goes to outrageous lengths -- including a fling with a passionate younger man -- to reel in her wealthy catch! Filled with laughs and riotous comic confusion -- everyone's sure to love this delightfully sexy comedy!

Customer Reviews:

Beautifully produced, lovely locations, uneven performances.......2007-05-17

This film was made after the blazing and much deserved success of "Enchanted April," a completely bewitching film about English women who rent a villa in Italy without knowing each other beforehand. If you like this at all, see "Enchanted April" - an infinitely superior film.

This film, a woman's film too, has similar beautiful locations, late 1930s, early 1940s settings and style, and a thinner romantic plot at it's core. Vanessa Redgrave and Edward Fox give lovely quiet performances as they meet sweet and irritate each other. Both suffer from middle aged wandering eye to some degree, which drives the plot as we wonder if they will, or will not get together. Unfortunately, neither one of them is a particularly likable character. We are supposed to like Redgrave because she is lanky and lopes along, and we are supposed to like him because SHE finds something redeemable.

Worse, the rest of the cast is extremely uneven in performance, and Thuman turns in her most artificial and posey work. She is lovely and the camera loves her, but she was young, and this is a high school level performance, she seems very ill at ease in this role. By contrast Redgrave's Italian boy interest does a very fine job, perhaps because most of his scenes are with her.

The story is rather predictable, and for classic film fans, we get to see Alida Valli (The Third Man) in her later years. Sadly, her performance is also uneven. When it shows up in so many cast members, one has to attribute this to the Director. Some of them seem to be playing a broad comedy, but the 2 leads are in a refined drama.

For me it was a little too wispy and feels like too much meringe. For many this will be a fine, light entertaining diversion.

oh so boring.......2007-05-13

92 minutes felt like 3 hours - boring and not at all humerous. Lost my attention with in the first 20 minutes.

SPECTACULAR ,SCENERY.......2007-01-04

A VERY WELL ACTED MOVIE, THURMAN IS VERY GOOD IN THIS. THE OUTFITS AND CARS FIT THE PERIOD TO A TEE. THE SCENERY IS QUITE GRAND, IT WANTS TO MAKE YOU GO AND VISIT THAT LOCATION.

Lake Como is beautiful........2006-11-05

Romance, beautiful scenery, an interesting story, and a happy ending - my kind of movie. I bought this copy for a friend who has been to Lake Como and is in love with all of Italy.

Picturesque Period Romance with Redgrave in Rare, Breezy Form.......2006-04-22

Since George Clooney and his rat pack seem to be bringing back a certain cachet to Italy's Lake Como, it's worth revisiting this picture-postcard pretty 1995 romantic comedy directed by John Irvin since it is set there before the onset of WWII. The lightweight plot focuses on a beautiful, elegant villa in the summer of 1937 where Miss Bentley has already spent sixteen summers with her father. Adored by the staff, she spends her first summer there after her father has died, and on her first day, she is immediately drawn to the polite but rather pompous Major Wilshaw. In typical movie-only fashion, they meet repeatedly, awkwardly and fractiously, in particular, over a tennis match where she defeats the major with ease in front of a most enthusiastic group. There is unavoidable but unspoken chemistry between the two, but further complications ensue with the arrival of Miss Beaumont, the young, flirtatious nanny of a wealthy Italian family staying at the villa. Miss Beaumont manages to convince Wilshaw that she loves him, and he becomes instantly enamored. On her side, Miss Bentley attracts the attention of a much younger admirer named Vittorio, a local Vespa-riding lothario intent on seducing her amid his raging hormones.

As you can imagine, the complications sort themselves out, but the clever way that Irvin and screenwriter Trevor Bentham handle the story, while patently old-fashioned, is also charming and sometimes quite perceptive about how more mature people approach love. In a rare comedic turn that immediately recalls Kate Hepburn circa 1955's "Summertime", Vanessa Redgrave redefines any preconceived image one would have of a spinster, as she brings buoyant energy and a blessed lack of self-consciousness to the independent Miss Bentley. Even though she makes no attempt at assimilating into the period with her most contemporary look, she shows off a deft skill for romantic foreplay for likely the first time since she was a mod swinger in the 1960's with movies like "Morgan!". Her athleticism is also impressive whether on the tennis court or in the lake swimming the backstroke, though her rather androgynous look wouldn't seem like it would attract the not altogether unwelcome attentions of horny Italian boys.

The other points of the triangle are not as fully drawn. Edward Fox plays the major with a stiff upper lip and glowers appropriately in every scene where he loses his dignity - which is often. Fresh off "Pulp Fiction", Uma Thurman plays a man-eating vamp in broad strokes, and her constant delight in humiliating the major gets tiresome. Her beauty, however, is inarguable and Wilshaw's obsession understandable. There is some intriguing casting on the sidelines - as the moony Vittorio, Alessandro Gassman (son of actor Vittorio Gassman) would play the viral maniac in "Transporter 2" a decade later; and the proprietress of the villa, Signora Fascioli, is played by Alida Valli a mere 46 years after her seductive turn as Harry Lime's lover Anna in Carol Reed's "The Third Man" (sadly and coincidentally she passed away today!). The beauty of Lake Como is captured in all its shimmering light by cinematographer Pasqualino De Santis, and Nicola Piovani's music score provides the right evocative flavor for the period. It's a sweet, entertaining movie, brief at 91 minutes, and definitely for viewers fond of travelogue movies like Mike Newell's "Enchanted April" and Audrey Wells' "Under the Tuscan Sun". The 2003 DVD has no extras.

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