Lottie Wilkins (played by Josie Lawrence - whom, at first, I did not recognize, byt soon realized I remembered from the English , and original, version of Whose line is it anyway?) sees a newspaper advert for an Italian castle being let for April, with servants, and decides she wants to go. In her ladies club she speaks with Rose Arbuthnot (played by Miranda Richardson), and convinces her that the month's respite would do them good. Soon Mrs. Arbuthnot is in charge of the details, and rents the castle from George Briggs (played by Michael Kitchen, of Foyle's War). To offset the cost of the month's rent, they advertise for women to share their month's idyll, and receive, to their utter surprise, only two answers. One is crusty Mrs. Fisher (played by Joan Plowright), a widow whose husband had been part of English intellectual circles in which personages such as Tennyson existed, and who retains a rather elevated sense of herself. The second respondent is Lady Caroline Dester (played by Polly Walker), a society beauty who longs to be away from all the attention of men clawing at her, all the parties she attends, and simply do nothing.
It was a kick to see Joan Plowright, the reason I searched out the film (being on a Plowright binge, having seen Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont and Tea with Mussolini recently). An added fun detail was the presence of an Arbuthnot, as there had been a charactert with the same name in Claremont. She plays the character marvelously, and some of her quirks and mannerisms, and vocal inflections, are there.
The Italian countryside is a marvelous added detail. The men in the film, Alfred Molina playing Mellersh Wilkins, Michael Kitchen as George Briggs, and Jim Broadbent as Frederick Arbuthnot, are quite hapless.
A gem.
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