Tea With Mussolini (April 20th and 22nd at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[TEA WITH MUSSOLINI screens Thursday April 20th at 8:30 pm and Saturday April 22nd at 7:10 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

In 1999, Cher went the Merchant-Ivory route in TEA WITH MUSSOLINI, a very proper, genteel drama, said to be based on incidents in the early life of the UK-Italian co-production’s director, Franco Zeffirelli.

No, Cher does not attempt an English accent, but appropriately plays a flamboyant American showgirl-turned-gold-digger, part of a mini-society of high-born ladies hanging around the piazzas of Florence, Italy, in the 1930s. Mostly English aristocrats - and mostly acted by grandes dammes of British drama such as Joan Plowright and Judi Dench - these aged Italophiles drink tea, throw parties, have affairs, pamper their dogs/children, visit Roman ruins, restore art frescoes, and otherwise have it pretty easy.  Until the rise of strutting Nazi ally Benito Mussolini drags their precious Italy into fascism.