ENCHANTED APRIL
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1992 Frank Maloney
ENCHANTED APRIL is a film by Mike Newell, from a script by Peter Barnes. It stars Josie Lawrence, Miranda Richardson, Joan Plowright, and Polly Walker, with Alfred Molina, Michael Kitchen, and Jim Broadbent. Photographed by Rex Maidment. Based on a novel by Elizabeth Von Armin. Rated PG, due to subject matter.
ENCHANTED APRIL is another entry in the ongoing series of costume pictures based on British novels of the 1920s, especially the ones where the Britons go to Italy to thaw out emotionally and elsewise. Unlike ROOM WITH A VIEW or WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD, the source material here is not E. M. Forester, but Elizabeth Von Armin, a writer with considerably less reputation amongst today's readers. By all reports, Peter Barnes, who wrote THE RULING CLASS, has trimmed much deadwood from the novel, the clumsy humor and several subplots, to concentrate on the recuperative magic of a special place. In this case, the special place is a small Italian castle overlooking the sea and surrounded by gardens and woods of the most exquisite beauty. The film was shot sequentially in the same place that Von Armin wrote her novel, St. George's Fortress (now called Castello Brown), near Portofino. It may that the actors were as affected by the place as were their characters, for the change that comes over everyone is remarkably visible in their faces and body language.
The story is slight, even hard to believe due to its sunny outlook, its familiarity, even its magic. But it provides a framework for some lovely ensemble acting by four of Britain's best. Joan Plowright, the vinegary old survivor of the Victorian literary set, who want to sit in the shade and remember better times, takes over any scene she's in, which is as it should be. Polly Walker plays the beautiful, aristocratic leader of London's smart set, who is tired of being the center of attention, of the empty life. Josie Lawrence is a rather fanciful, intuitive London housewife who is bullied by her tightwad husband (Alfred Molina). And Miranda Richardson goes against type and plays a dowdy suburban housewife, who does not approve of her novelist-husband's books. He's played by Jim Broadbent. The third man in the story is the owner of the castle, Michael Kitchen, who drops in on the group after they're well ensconced in Italy.
ENCHANTED APRIL, despite it thinness, its incredibility, is both magical and very funny. The actors are superb. The photography fills you longing to get on the next plane for Portofino. The transformation the place effects is not quite made accessible to us, we are reduced to taking it on face, but it is good to believe in something so rejuvenating, so recuperative.
I can recommend ENCHANTED APRIL to anyone in need of little uplift.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
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