Maggie Smith has a way of owning a room without saying a word. In My House in Umbria, she doesn’t just play a character; she inhabits a specific kind of fragile, gin-soaked resilience that feels painfully real. It's a 2003 HBO film that many people missed when it first aired, or perhaps they’ve conflated it with other "Enchanted April" style period pieces. But this isn't just a travelogue.
Bad things happen in beautiful places.
The story kicks off with a literal bang—a terrorist bombing on an Italian train. It’s sudden. Violent. It shreds the lives of a handful of survivors who end up convalescing at the villa of Mrs. Emily Delahunty. She’s a romance novelist. She drinks too much. She has a past that she’s rewritten more often than her own manuscripts. Honestly, if you’re looking for a film that explores how we use fiction to survive reality, this is the one.
The Raw Reality Behind My House in Umbria
William Trevor wrote the novella this movie is based on, and if you know Trevor’s work, you know he doesn’t do "happily ever after" in the traditional sense. He does "getting by." The film adaptation, directed by Richard Loncraine, keeps that melancholy edge even when the sun is shining over the Italian hills.
The survivors are a mismatched bunch. There’s a young girl, Aimee, who has stopped speaking after losing her parents in the blast. There’s an elderly British general and a young German man. They are all broken. Mrs. Delahunty decides, in her grand, slightly delusional way, to bring them all to her home. She wants to create a sanctuary.
It’s about trauma.
We talk a lot about "found family" in modern TV shows, but My House in Umbria was doing it decades ago with a much darker undertone. These people aren't together because they want to be; they are together because they are the only ones who understand the ringing in each other's ears.
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Maggie Smith and the Art of the Unreliable Narrator
Let’s talk about Mrs. Delahunty.
Most people see Maggie Smith and think Downton Abbey or Harry Potter. They expect the sharp tongue and the rigid spine. In this movie, she’s different. She’s softer, but also messier. Emily Delahunty is an unreliable narrator of her own life. She tells stories to mask a childhood that was likely filled with neglect and abuse.
When Chris Cooper shows up as Aimee’s cold, academic uncle from America, the tension shifts. He represents the "real world"—logic, distance, and the rigid adherence to what is "best" rather than what is kind. He wants to take the girl away. He doesn't see the healing happening in the garden. He just sees a drunk woman and a group of strangers.
It's a clash of worldviews. One side believes in the power of imagination and communal healing; the other believes in facts and biological duty.
Why the Italian Setting Isn't Just Window Dressing
Italy in cinema is often a cliché. You’ve seen the rolling hills and the cypress trees a thousand times. However, in My House in Umbria, the landscape serves as a deliberate contrast to the internal wreckage of the characters. The house itself, Villa Rosa, becomes a character.
The cinematography by Marco Pontecorvo doesn't shy away from the beauty, but it feels heavy. The heat feels real. The dust on the wine bottles feels real. It’s a place where time has slowed down, which is exactly what you need when your life has been blown apart in a split second.
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- The train blast was based on the 1980 Bologna massacre.
- The film won Maggie Smith an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress.
- It explores the psychological concept of "narrative identity."
Honestly, the movie works because it doesn't try to be an action flick about catching terrorists. It’s a chamber piece. It’s about the "after." What do you do on Tuesday when the explosion was on Sunday? How do you eat soup with a man who lost his daughter in the same seat where you lost your briefcase?
A Masterclass in Subtlety
There is a scene where Emily tries to comfort the General. It’s quiet. There are no swelling violins. It’s just two older people acknowledging that the world has become a place they no longer recognize.
The script, penned by Hugh Whitemore, avoids the "inspirational" tropes that plague movies about recovery. Nobody suddenly gives a speech and makes everything okay. Recovery in this film is a series of small, often failed, attempts to connect. Sometimes Emily fails. Sometimes she drinks too much and makes a fool of herself. That’s why it works. It’s human.
Comparing the Film to William Trevor's Novella
If you’ve read the book, you’ll notice the movie softens Emily a bit. Trevor’s Emily is even more eccentric, even more detached from reality. The film makes her a bit more sympathetic, likely to suit Maggie Smith’s screen presence.
Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily.
Films are a different medium. We need to see the flicker of hope in her eyes for the movie to sustain ninety minutes. In the book, the cynicism is thicker. But both versions handle the arrival of the "Uncle" (played by Cooper) with the same sense of impending doom. He is the intruder. He is the one who threatens the fragile ecosystem of the house.
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How to Watch My House in Umbria Today
Finding this movie can be a bit of a hunt depending on your streaming services. Since it’s an HBO film, Max (formerly HBO Max) is usually your best bet, but licensing deals change like the weather.
- Check Max first.
- Look for it on Amazon as a digital rental.
- Believe it or not, physical DVDs are still the most reliable way to own this one, as it often falls through the cracks of digital libraries.
It’s worth the search.
Especially if you’re tired of the hyper-fast editing of modern cinema. This movie breathes. It lets you sit in the room with the characters. It lets you feel the breeze coming off the hills.
Final Thoughts on Mrs. Delahunty’s Journey
The ending of My House in Umbria isn't a neat bow. It’s a bittersweet acknowledgment that while you can’t fix everything, you can choose who you walk through the ruins with. Emily Delahunty might be a "writer of cheap romances," as the Uncle implies, but she understands the human heart better than he ever will.
She knows that we are all just making it up as we go.
Next Steps for the Viewer:
To truly appreciate the nuances of the film, watch it back-to-back with Enchanted April or A Room with a View. You will notice how much more somber and grounded the stakes are in Umbria. After watching, track down William Trevor’s collected stories. He is a master of the "small" moment, and reading his prose will give you a much deeper appreciation for why the characters in the movie act with such guarded hesitation. Pay close attention to the background characters—the General and the young German—their silence speaks volumes more than the dialogue.