Product Details

• Actors: Maggie Smith, Ronnie Barker, Chris Cooper, Benno Fürmann, Giancarlo Giannini
• Directors: Richard Loncraine
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English, Italian
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Hbo Home Video
• DVD Release Date: November 25, 2003
• Run Time: 103 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000CE684
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,458 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "My House in Umbria" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Survivors of a train wreck recooperate together, until the uncle of the youngest comes to take her home with him.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: UN
Release Date: 8-FEB-2005
Media Type: DVD

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

104 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CAN'T WAIT FOR THE DVD, November 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: My House in Umbria (DVD)

I saw this lovely film on HBO, and it's to their immense credit that this film was seen at all. This film would never be released by a major studio these days. They are only concerned with huge blockbuster movies, yet anyone who cares about a strong, emotional story, set in gorgeous Umbria and starring Maggie Smith shouldn't miss this gem.

Maggie Smith stars as an aging romance novelist living in splendid isolation in her villa in the Umbrian countryside. On a shopping trip, the train she's traveling on is bombed by terrorists. When the dust is settled, Smith, and several of the travelers who shared her compartment, are in the hospital, including a little girl who has lost her parents. Smith generously offers her home as a refuge for the survivors to recuperate.

The traumatized little girl can't speak. Smith's heart goes out to her, and she does her best to make her as comfortable as possible. Smith's rather bohemian character, as well as her fondness for cocktails makes her a slightly madcap, tipsy hostess. Rather lonely of late, this unexpected intrusion in her life makes her feel needed. There's a young man with a secret to hide, and an older pensioner who round out the group. Then the little girl's uptight uncle (played with unstated eloquence by Chris Cooper) comes to take custody of his brother's orphaned daughter.

Smith is devasted by his coldness, his disapproval, and senses that he simply is taking the girl out of a sense of duty to his brother.

I won't give anymore of the plot away. Dame Maggie won a well-deserved Emmy for her superb portrayal of a middle-aged spinster, lonely for love, and with her own tragic past, who finds a purpose in her life in the aftermath of tragedy. The script is superb, the Italian settings and the gorgeous period costumes as well as fine work from a strong cast, make this a memorble viewing experience.

Nobody captures loneliness as truthfully as Dame Maggie. She's been doing it throughout her long career, as Rod Taylor's assistant in the bloated VIPs, as the headstrong teacher in THE PRME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE, as the actress nominated for an Oscar in CALIFORNIA SUITE, and countless other memorable screen portraits. Highly recommended.

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We should all learn to forgive, January 5, 2004

By 

Alane M. Downes "downfall4" (Harpswell, ME United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My House in Umbria [VHS] (VHS Tape)

You can read some of the other reviews to get more of the gist of the plot, but I just want to add that this movie is well worth seeing. This movie should move you. Dame Maggie Smith,portraying an aging romance novelist, is elegant, understated, and honest. She shows in her anguish the depths of her depression as she senses old age coming upon her and her appeal as a woman all but snuffed out. The girl (I don't have her name on hand, unfortunately) who played the child who had lost both her parents in the bomb blast and was still in the early stages of recovery when her uncle wanted to uproot her from her new home in Umbria, was breathtakingly luminous. The young actress plays the part with such sincerity. She does not have much of a speaking role, but she becomes by way of the intermingling of the characters, the focal point of the movie. Her interaction with Mrs. Delahonte (sp?)(Maggie Smith) and with Werner, the young German, is deeply moving.As Mrs. Delahonte (sp?) becomes deeply attached to the young girl and it appears that this relationship will be tragically severed, you realize that the notion of family and emotional bonding is never defined by blood ties alone. The relationship between Mrs. Delahonte and the young girl is beautifully portrayed. This movie is timeless in its message: we all should forgive because we all have something for which we need to be forgiven.

61 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Maggie's Showcase--For Better or Worse, February 19, 2005

By 

Pintorini (Saint Louis, Missouri United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My House in Umbria (DVD)

Writer Alan Bennett has been quoted as saying that we're "lucky to be living in her time." He was talking about Maggie Smith.

Bennett's observation seems a tad bittersweet. Yes, we're lucky to be living in her time because she's fabulous, but also because, unless we happen to catch her live on the West End stage, we aren't likely to see her in much of a leading part, ever. In fact, the noteworthy films in which this two-time Oscar winner has played the principal role basically consist of this made-for-HBO endeavor and *The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie* (1969).

The upshot is that *My House in Umbria* has a tremendous weight to bear--that of a legendary actress's best screen vehicle in thirty-five years. It seems a little unfair to judge it based on whether it's worthy of such a distinction, and I can't help wondering whether this accounts for some of this rather plotless film's, shall we say, generous critical reviews.

Still, the more times I see it--and it speaks volumes when I'm able to watch a movie more than once--the more I appreciate its leisurely, picturesque style, and the more uplifted I feel by its timely and refreshing theme: that of injured survivors being "set free" by their enjoyment of nature and each other.

And, ultimately, I begin to think of this movie as a vehicle worthy of its star, and as one in the recent string of high-quality HBO films that have been so good I've almost wanted to send the company a fan letter. Go, HBO.