If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fantastic!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

A dud and a bore. Evidently I am not a "play" type person.I am sorry but 4 middle aged women wondering about love and relationships with their husbands is boring period. Give it a feminist twist a couple poorly cast characters and you get either sleep or torture.I particularly found the "beautiful" woman Caroline Dexter bothersome people who think they are beautiful and aren't are such a turn off.... but wouldn't this be the director's fault?During the first 5 minutes of the movie I should have followed my impulse to turn it off when I saw the feminist twist to it = a shy woman is going against all custom and going on a high adventure holiday without her husband (renting castle like villa in Italy with 4 other women a la golden girls). Is there such a category as yuppie feminist boring fluff with pretenses of depth?There was nothing deep or interesting in this thing... even the most boring soap opera has a story this of course was "above" all that.Avoid like the plague

An enchanting film. It gets off to a slow start, but once the two women get off to their vacation, things pick up, and we get an engrossing story.The story was filmed as a mini-series for the BBC in 1992, and it was released theatrically in the US. The story takes place in England in the Twenties, and Lottie (played by Josie Lawrence) is sick of the weather - it's March - dreary, and rainy. Lottie and Rose (Miranda Richardson) become acquainted and are unhappy in their marriages, so they decide to rent a villa in Italy for the month of April. They can't quite afford it, though, so they advertise for another two ladies, and a more dissimilar quartet would be hard to imagine. Lottie's and Rose's husbands are played by Alfred Molino and Jim Broadbent, and all four are excellent. Joan Plowright and Polly Walker play the other two woman sharing the villa. Things get off to a rocky start and the ladies defend their turf and come to terms about who shall dominate whom. But the Italian April works its enchantment on them, and soon things go much better. Lottie decides to invite her husband to see if the magic can help them reconcile. Rose then writes to her husband to invite him. Then things get sticky. Jim Broadbent's character has been chasing Polly Walker's character unknown to Rose; Rose is being pursued by the owner of the villa.The resolution of the various threads is well done, and the ending is satisfying. If you like this movie, I recommend "Smiles of a Summer Night" and vice versa.

After being involved in the theatrical version i find the film version disjointed and boring. Lines said by one character in the play are said by a different character in the film and some characters have entirely different names. There also seems to me an excessive amount of editing between locations. (There is even more jumping around between London scenes than the play.) Also the scene where Mellersh is eating near the beginning of the film i find repulsive and unnecessary. Once the action moves to Italy the film improves, but not enough to save it ultimately. Jim Broadbent, although an actor i enjoy watching, was miscast in this outing.

This is the kind of movie England can do in its sleep, and that's meaning it as a compliment. Because of the success of very British comedies of manners situated at the end or beginning of the Twentieth Century, most notably adaptations of E. M. Forster novels, this very Merchant-Ivory like production was received in the light it brought when it was released in 1992. It was an exceptional year for actress Miranda Richardson, having appeared as the wife of Jeremy Irons who discovers her husband has been having an affair in the worst possible way in DAMAGE, and as the IRA terrorist who eventually dons a wig and gets a nasty comeuppance in THE CRYING GAME. Here, she plays a quiet, serene type of woman in Rose Arbuthnot, one who with Josie Lawrence who plays Lottie Wilkins, embarks on a trip that is filled with self-discovery. They are joined by an unlikely pair of ladies: one Caroline Dester, played by the enigmatic Polly Walker who resembles a very vamp Louise Brooks (and not just in the style of hair she wears), and Mrs. Fisher (Joan Plowright). This foursome will eventually merge together into becoming deep friends only because the story is so filled with spring and an overwhelming, dreamy sweetness it almost preordains it, but this is fine; it's the movie it wants to be. Alfred Molina and Jim Broadbent (then relatively new to American audiences) fill out the cast as the husbands of the two main characters, and all in all, Mike Newell makes with his movie a living thing of near-magical elements, full of quiet moments and wonder.