MY HOUSE IN UMBRIA (USA)

I found this old review from years ago when I was clearing out some old papers I have been carrying around with me for years. Once a film reviewer, always a film reviewer, I guess.

The lead is a successful English-born writer of romance novels, played by the standout British actress, Maggie Smith. Though her success as an author, she has been able to buy a large house in Umbria, in the Italian countryside. But she has no family and feels acutely alone. But then she gets involved in a freak train accident that brings her into contact with three strangers who she invites recover with her at her home. 

This is a writer's film. Not simply because the central character is a writer, but also because it attempts to portray the personal qualities of writers, what sets them apart from ordinary mortals.

She is highly sensitive, both to other people's energetic presences, and to her surroundings. She can accurately guess people's star signs and she sees events being played out in her dreams. She has visions that help her solve the mystery of the train 'accident' which was in fact a terrorist attack. She has the ability to see beneath the surface, a quality that is needed to be a writer. 

One of the three people she invites into her home is an eight year old girl who has been traumatised by the train accident. When an uncle, a professor specialising in the study of ants, comes to take her back to America, Maggie is shocked by his lack of sensitivity. He poo poos her romance novels and does nothing to hide the fact that he views her as just a silly woman around whom he can barely bare to be around. Yet she has a sixth sense, a clairvoyance that leaves him for dead. 

There are beathtaking panoramas of the Italian landscape including vast fields of red poppies

The underlying theme is sensitivity and sensibility. And being sensitive to the needs of others.

I found this film so moving at the end, I was in tears. It struck a deep chord with me and with my own life. I am a writer too and have spent much of my life alone. I too can see beneath the surface of everyday events. I empathise with the writer completely. I hope to one day see this lovely film again. 


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