Enchanted April

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Cast & Crew

Miranda Richardson
Rose Arbuthnot

Joan Plowright
Mrs. Fisher

Alfred Molina
Mellersh Wilkins

Josie Lawrence
Lottie Wilkins

Polly Walker
Caroline Dester

Michael Kitchen
George Briggs

Jim Broadbent
Frederick Arbuthnot

Mike Newell
Director

Peter Barnes
Writer

Simon Relph
Executive Producer

Mark Shivas
Executive Producer

Ann Scott
Producer

Richard Rodney Bennett
Original Music

Rex Maidment
Cinematographer

Malcolm Thornton
Production Design

Sheena Napier
Costume Designer

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Critic Reviews for Enchanted April

Audience Reviews for Enchanted April

• Feb 12, 2013

  I'm not one for the period pieces but I am willing to make an exception for this one. Same old, same old in terms of a story line. Brits abroad in a foreign land but these pairings work and there is gorgeous interplay.
  

  John B Super Reviewer
• Oct 02, 2012

  Four English ladies rent an Italian villa. The biggest surprise about Enchanted April is that it's not a Merchant/Ivory production. It has all the trappings of such a film with it's understated, often-quotidian conflicts and its focus on setting to provide thematic mood. It's A Room with a View. While I liked A Room with a View, I recognized that the quotidian conflicts don't always provide the matter for compelling drama; the same is true for Enchanted April. The performances by all the actresses are strong, but I was particularly "enchanted" by Polly Walker as the free-spirited Lady Caroline. Overall, if you like Merchant/Ivory's films, then you'll like this film because the differences between these films is negligible. The performances by all the actresses are
  Jim H Super Reviewer
• Mar 07, 2012

  The Enchanted April is quirky, full of humour, of misunderstandings, of instances of characters miscommunicating and misjudging one another's intentions. Yet it's also charming and sweet which candidly explores, albeit somewhat lightheartedly, the heartache four women are nursing caused by aging, marital neglect, and the like. Based on the 1921 novel by Elizabeth von Armin, the film centers on Lottie Wilkins (Josie Lawrence), a shabby middle-class wife, blessed with a self-proclaimed magical ability to see into people. When her eyes catch a newspaper ad for a month in an Italian villa, she immediately thinks of her downtrodden neighbor Rose Arbuthnot (Miranda Richardson). To save money, two other eccentric femmes join this couple: the haughty widow Mrs. Fisher (Joan Plowright) and the alluring society lady, Caroline Dester (Polly Walker), who is the opposite of all the others. When they wake up in their villa after a rainy nighttime arrival (Britain still seems to follow them like a cloud), they open their windows to a sunny spring morning on the Italian coast, the hills exploding in flowers and foliage, the Mediterranean waters a captivating azure catching the sun with white accents. It's a fairy tale awakening for them in every way. "It's this place," says Lawrence's newly recharged character. Then the film slips into internal monologues to tell us about the transformations the characters are going through and they seem so unnecessary so much of the time, mostly because the observations are already so apparent to the eye. And when the husbands arrive, the old romances are recharged and relationships rekindled with newfound respect and affection, if not for the commitment and compassion and generosity of Mike Newell's direction. It's not about escape or rebirth, it's about renewal and appreciation, with all the restraint we've come to expect in the oh-so-British manner of period movies, but behind that precious romanticism is a genuine commitment to this emotional renewal. This is an earnest movie about personality transformation, self-renewal and life lessons about female camaraderie.
  Cinema F Super Reviewer
• Oct 02, 2010

  American sensibilities usually go agog when it comes to English country homes and their varied inhabitants, which is why "Downton Abbey" is an iconoclast by itself. This film falls into the genre of hapless women alone in Italy and their various adventures. The so-called adventures of the women in this film are pathetic, short sighted, and at times disappointing. Two of these women are repressed, and depressed, housewives from the rumbling metropolis of London. They're friends, they both wish their husbands cared more about them, and both need to get away from the horrible, rainy weather. Their husbands include a politician and a ghost writer who goes off to parties and socializes with the toast of the city, at times flirting with infidelity. Both husbands are mercifully repulsive, but instead of the women getting away and eventually leaving them, the film celebrates women changing via a vacation to Italy in order to entice their significant others. The film loses any empathy by sticking to its source material ("The Enchanted April" by Elizabeth Von Armin), and pairs together the last remaining singles into couples at the end, just so it can be tied up in a little bow. Even the so-called enchanted countryside is barely shown except for some shots of wisteria and garden paths. Otherwise most of the film is shot within the confines of the Italian castle, also not all that grand. A film's beatific setting can often enchant when the characters do not, but there isn't even a hint of guilty pleasure surrounding this film. It doesn't have the wit of an Austen adaptation or the dramatic setting and tone of a Merchant/Ivory film. It simply lingers on the most boring elements of dialogue, and on characters that don't do anything. Even the surrounding characters, which include a widow who made friends of the elite in literature, a coaxing socialite, and the castle's owner, can't make this film compelling in any way. If you want to watch a bunch of flighty women fighting to be happy, this is for you, but otherwise it doesn't have merit.
  Spencer S Super Reviewer

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