This was the second time that von Arnim's novel had been filmed. A 1935 RKO version starred Ann Harding (miscast as Lottie), with a delightful performance by character actress Jessie Ralph as Mrs. Fisher. The problem with the earlier film was that the magical beauty of San Salvatore was much talked about but never seen -- the film was shot on studio soundstages. Director Mike Newell rectified that mistake in the remake, shooting on location at the villa that had served as the inspiration for von Arnim's novel. The lush cinematography captures the splendor of the setting, and makes it an important character in the film.
An Australian born British novelist, von Arnim was as flamboyant as the heroines of her romantic yet psychologically probing novels. Her first husband was a Prussian count, and she lived a life of privilege, writing about it in her autobiographical first novel, Elizabeth and her German Garden (1898). Left penniless by her husband's death in 1910, she turned to writing full time. After an affair with novelist H.G. Wells ended in 1916, she impulsively remarried. That marriage was a disaster, and in 1919 she fled to Portofino, Italy, where she stayed in a castle that inspired her to write the novel about the power of beauty to soothe and transform troubled souls.
Both the director and the star of Enchanted April were unlikely choices for a frothy comedy of manners. Mike Newell had directed Miranda Richardson to an Academy Award nomination in Dance with a Stranger (1985), a grim, fact-based drama about murderess Ruth Ellis, the last woman executed in Great Britain in 1955. According to an article in the New York Times, Newell had been trying without success to get financing for a film version of a darker von Arnim novel, Vera (1921). When that didn't work out, his producer suggested Enchanted April instead, but Newell told her, "I don't do happy." Fortunately, he changed his mind. The classically trained Richardson was easier to convince. She had proved adept in comedy as well as drama, playing a wacked-out Queen Elizabeth I in the Blackadder television series.
The comic standout in Enchanted April is Joan Plowright, playing the namedropping grande dame whose withering putdowns go unnoticed in the rarefied air of San Salvatore, which soon mellows her. Plowright was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting actress, but lost to Marisa Tomei. Enchanted April was also nominated for its adapted screenplay, and for costume design.
The reviews were as glowing as a Portofino morning. If some curmudgeonly critics grumbled a bit about the lack of substance in Enchanted April ("apparently there are no bad people," wrote David Denby in New York magazine, "only people who live in bad weather."), most surrendered to its spell. Jami Bernard of the New York Post called it "charming, disarming, and thoroughly enchanting." According to Newsweek's David Ansen, "It's a tribute to Newell's seductive filmmaking, and to the delicious wit of the sterling cast, that this unlikely romantic idyll casts so potent a spell. Enchanted April won't bear much scrutiny; just bask in it indulgently like a spring sun." The film was a worldwide hit, and Newell went on to make other crowd-pleasers such as Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005).
Director: Mike Newell
Producer: Ann Scott
Screenplay: Peter Barnes, based on the novel by Elizabeth von Arnim
Cinematography: Rex Maidment
Editor: Dick Allen
Costume Design: Sheena Napier
Production Designer: Malcolm Thornton
Music: Richard Rodney Bennett
Principal Cast: Miranda Richardson (Rose Arbuthnot), Josie Lawrence (Lottie Wilkins), Joan Plowright (Mrs. Fisher), Polly Walker (Lady Caroline Dester), Alfred Molina (Mellersh Wilkins), Jim Broadbent (Frederick Arbuthnot), Michael Kitchen (George Briggs), Davide Manuli (Beppo), Adriana Facchetti (Francesca).
C-101m. Letterboxed.
by Margarita Landazuri
