Tea With Mussolini

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Tea With Mussolini

PG,

1999,

1h 57m,

Comedy/

Drama/

War

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Watchlist

64%

39 Reviews

Tomatometer

76%

5,000+ Ratings

Popcornmeter

64%

Tomatometer

39 Reviews

76%

Popcornmeter

5,000+ Ratings

In the 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends -- including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa and archaeologist Georgie -- keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.

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Critics Consensus

Tea with Mussolini contains few surprises, but this amiably ambling drama is too likable -- and well-cast -- to completely resist.

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Wendy Ide

The Times (UK)

May 18, 2023

Franco Zeffirelli drew on his early life for this evocative portrait of an expat community in pre-Second World War Italy.

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Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

Jan 1, 2000

2.5/4

The movie is heavier with events than with plot. Things are always happening, but it's hard to see the connections, and the material involving Elsa's love affair, Lady Hester's draft-dodging grandson and Arabella's dog all coexists uneasily.

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Al Weisel

Out Magazine

May 25, 2022

Don't expect Italian neorealism; like most of Zeffirelli's work, the film is slightly grander than life.

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Chase Burns

The Stranger (Seattle, WA)

Jan 5, 2022

...in all honesty, the movie is drab. They're literally draped in drab...

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Jan Stuart

The Advocate

Jul 27, 2021

The Zeffirelli approach to history combines the time-marches-on urgency of an old Movietone newsreel with the sun-dappled sheen of an Italian Tourist Authority brochure.

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Tracey Petherick

Common Sense Media

Mar 26, 2021

3/5

Uplifting WWII drama has some violence but positive themes.

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Kylo S

Nov 14, 2018

They say it takes a village to raise a child-though in lieu of a whole Tuscan town, it seems all a boy really needs is a group of elderly English ladies and their wealthy American friend. Likewise, rather than a fully fleshed out narrative or a meaningful sense of urgency or danger, it seems all a movie really needs is an ensemble of legendary actresses enjoying themselves. Whatever the very real terror of the historical events displayed, the film more or less keeps the bleak shadows just offstage, merely hinting at the brutality of the fascists and Nazis, wallowing instead in an amiable Italian fantasy of nostalgia. In reality, while these women are based on a group that the young Zeffirelli really did know while growing up, the director never saw them again after they were taken to an internment camp-the obscured, repressed type of camp, belied by the campiness that actually appears on screen.

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Kylo S

Mar 12, 2018

Maybe not a perfect movie but it's just a delight to see Cher, Maggie Smith, Lily Tomlin, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright together!

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Franco Zeffirelli

Director

Cher

Elsa Morganthal Strauss-Armistan

Judi Dench

Arabella

Joan Plowright

Mary Wallace

Maggie Smith

Lady Hester Random

Lily Tomlin

Georgie

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Synopsis

In the 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends -- including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa and archaeologist Georgie -- keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.

Director: Franco Zeffirelli
Producer: Clive Parsons, Riccardo Tozzi, Giovannella Zannoni, Frederick Muller
Screenwriter: John Mortimer, Franco Zeffirelli
Distributor: CIC Video, United International Pictures, G2 Films
Production Co: Medusa Film, Cattleya, Film & General Productions Ltd. [gb], Cineritmo
Rating: PG
Genre: Comedy, Drama, War
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Apr 2, 1999, Wide
Release Date (DVD): May 1, 2001
Box Office (Gross USA): $14.4M
Runtime: 1h 57m
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital, DTS, Surround
Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.37:1)

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