Featured Audience Ratings

• Jim H

  
  Four English ladies rent an Italian villa. The biggest surprise about Enchanted April is that it's not a Merchant/Ivory production. It has all the trappings of such a film with it's understated, often-quotidian conflicts and its focus on setting to provide thematic mood.… More
  Four English ladies rent an Italian villa. The biggest surprise about Enchanted April is that it's not a Merchant/Ivory production. It has all the trappings of such a film with it's understated, often-quotidian conflicts and its focus on setting to provide thematic mood. It's A Room with a View. While I liked A Room with a View, I recognized that the quotidian conflicts don't always provide the matter for compelling drama; the same is true for Enchanted April. The performances by all the actresses are strong, but I was particularly "enchanted" by Polly Walker as the free-spirited Lady Caroline. Overall, if you like Merchant/Ivory's films, then you'll like this film because the differences between these films is negligible. The performances by all the actresses are

• Robert C

  
  A period 'romantic comedy' with an amazing ensemble cast. Funny, romantic and a little magical. THe Italian countryside is GORGEOUS!

• jay n

  
  charming

• John B

  
  I'm not one for the period pieces but I am willing to make an exception for this one. Same old, same old in terms of a story line. Brits abroad in a foreign land but these pairings work and there is gorgeous interplay.

• Dannielle A

  
  A delightful movie. Very quotable, funny, and relaxing to watch.

• Cinema F

  
  The Enchanted April is quirky, full of humour, of misunderstandings, of instances of characters miscommunicating and misjudging one another's intentions. Yet it's also charming and sweet which candidly explores, albeit somewhat lightheartedly, the heartache four women are… More
  The Enchanted April is quirky, full of humour, of misunderstandings, of instances of characters miscommunicating and misjudging one another's intentions. Yet it's also charming and sweet which candidly explores, albeit somewhat lightheartedly, the heartache four women are nursing caused by aging, marital neglect, and the like. Based on the 1921 novel by Elizabeth von Armin, the film centers on Lottie Wilkins (Josie Lawrence), a shabby middle-class wife, blessed with a self-proclaimed magical ability to see into people. When her eyes catch a newspaper ad for a month in an Italian villa, she immediately thinks of her downtrodden neighbor Rose Arbuthnot (Miranda Richardson). To save money, two other eccentric femmes join this couple: the haughty widow Mrs. Fisher (Joan Plowright) and the alluring society lady, Caroline Dester (Polly Walker), who is the opposite of all the others. When they wake up in their villa after a rainy nighttime arrival (Britain still seems to follow them like a cloud), they open their windows to a sunny spring morning on the Italian coast, the hills exploding in flowers and foliage, the Mediterranean waters a captivating azure catching the sun with white accents. It's a fairy tale awakening for them in every way. "It's this place," says Lawrence's newly recharged character. Then the film slips into internal monologues to tell us about the transformations the characters are going through and they seem so unnecessary so much of the time, mostly because the observations are already so apparent to the eye. And when the husbands arrive, the old romances are recharged and relationships rekindled with newfound respect and affection, if not for the commitment and compassion and generosity of Mike Newell's direction. It's not about escape or rebirth, it's about renewal and appreciation, with all the restraint we've come to expect in the oh-so-British manner of period movies, but behind that precious romanticism is a genuine commitment to this emotional renewal. This is an earnest movie about personality transformation, self-renewal and life lessons about female camaraderie.

• Leo L

  
  A favorite.

Read all 7 featured audience ratings