Up at the Villa

With UP AT THE VILLA, director Philip Haas offers an intriguing cocktail of romance, melodrama, and suspense. The setting is Italy in the late 1930s--fascism is on the rise, and British expatriate Mary Panton (Kristin Scott Thomas), a penniless young widow, is searching for a new husband who will be able to support her. She has all but made up her mind to accept wealthy Sir Edgar Swift's (James Fox) proposal when the situation is complicated by the arrival of a debonair American playboy, Rowley Flint, played by Sean Penn (who is cast against type here). A flirtation develops between the two--but it is yet another suitor, Austrian war refugee Karl Richter (Jeremy Davies), whose amorous advances Mary finally succumbs to out of pity. When Richter realizes that a continuation of their love affair is out of the question, he commits suicide. Now it's up to the rakish Rowley to save Mary from the consequences of her fateful one-night-stand, even if it means being arrested for murder. Directed with Haas's trademark flair for beautiful scenery, UP AT THE VILLA is an elegant cinematic adaptation of a novella by Somerset Maugham.