A Month by the Lake

“A Month by the Lake”

Movie Review by Gerti

There are few forms of entertainment that I can abandon after committing to them. Once I start a book, I have to finish reading it, no matter how bad. Once I start watching a movie, the same thing happens. But fortunately for me, in my lifetime there have been few books and movies so bad that I wanted to stop before I had finished them. This film, “A Month by the Lake,” is one of those.

Famous actress Vanessa Redgrave stars as Miss Bentley, an older British woman at a lovely villa by Italy’s Lake Como. She has been vacationing there for 16 years, always before with her father. But now he has passed away, and she is alone. Well, not really alone, because she knows everyone else there: the owner, the staff, more older anglo ladies, and a wealthy vacationing Italian family. But the excitement this year is that a bachelor has come into their midst, an older, British gentleman named Major Wilshaw. What a perfect setting for romance!

It would be, except that I HATE Vanessa Redgrave’s character. Since she is the protagonist, I should be sympathetic to her plight, but I find everything she does annoying and distasteful. Her personality is grating, and she says all the wrong things when she is introduced to the Major, whose name is Paul. They attempt several “dates”, but things always end in disaster. They make a date to eat together, but she runs late and then decides to eat with the huge Italian family instead, and he must join them. They decide to take a boat trip together, but her watch stops, and hence they miss the boat back. She decides to hitch a ride with some hot male motorcyclists, even though he cautions her not to.

Is it any surprise then that he is far more attracted to the American nanny hired by the Italian family to care for their two daughters? This woman is young, blonde Uma Thurman, and although she seems initially to be sweet on him (giving him a rose and kiss when he leaves), she is merely playing with him. But so is Vanessa’s character, who is also flirting with a young Italian man who finds her lithe aging body attractive. He has spent time with British women before on holiday in the UK, and apparently thinks she will find his attentions welcome. She does not, although she is willing to take nude pictures of him (her idea, not his).

Behind this terrible story is flimsy political wallpaper, as several fascist parades occur and the owner of the villa seems concerned about the changes that are coming. But it is all a thin gilding of high art on what is a very bad film about British and American characters who are all terrible people. Vanessa sums her character up when she tells the major she had a 15 year affair with a married man, but when his wife died, he somehow no longer wanted to marry this mistress of his. She is an insanely selfish person who has never grown up and makes the lives of those around her miserable with her whimsy. In the end, she and the Major find romance, but that is as far-fetched as the idea that a 20-something Italian model boy would stoop to romancing a British pensioner.