Let's start with what's good: beautiful outdoor shots, a beautiful mansion in/near Milan, wonderful stuff about the servants and the parties of the very rich.
That's all, folks...
Every character is cardboard; there's no depth, or at least (in the Emma -Tilda Swinton character) no believable depth. The plot has no surprises, except for one complete deus ex machina that's used to wrap it up -- with an ending that I at least found, consistently with the rest of this turkey, to be wildly unlikely and hence incredible. Ooooh the languor of the formal-dinner-partying rich, back in the days when one had a dozen servants to execute it. Ooooh the loving devotion of the chief housekeeper, mother to all three generations of "her" family. Oooooh the lovely, hairy body of the unsurprising love interest. And so on, and so on. The unfeeling, greedy industrialists? Wow, that's shocking. The sensitive son, who has no problem with his gay sibling but butts heads with his greedy cold dad? Who would have thought it? There is no interesting idea anywhere in this movie.
That's all, folks...
Every character is cardboard; there's no depth, or at least (in the Emma -Tilda Swinton character) no believable depth. The plot has no surprises, except for one complete deus ex machina that's used to wrap it up -- with an ending that I at least found, consistently with the rest of this turkey, to be wildly unlikely and hence incredible. Ooooh the languor of the formal-dinner-partying rich, back in the days when one had a dozen servants to execute it. Ooooh the loving devotion of the chief housekeeper, mother to all three generations of "her" family. Oooooh the lovely, hairy body of the unsurprising love interest. And so on, and so on. The unfeeling, greedy industrialists? Wow, that's shocking. The sensitive son, who has no problem with his gay sibling but butts heads with his greedy cold dad? Who would have thought it? There is no interesting idea anywhere in this movie.