Great Actresses Miscast In Picturesque ‘A Month By The Lake’

One of the worst things that directors do to actors is cast them in roles that are unsuited to their strengths.

The resulting situation can pose problems for even the very best talents. Take the problems posed by the film “A Month By the Lake.”

This is a little story about a curious menage a trois involving two aging Britons and a young American woman. Set in 1937, with the coming war trumpeted by fascist parades and the drone of airplanes, the story unfolds at a villa on glorious Lake Como in northern Italy.

Miss Bentley (Vanessa Redgrave) has been coming to the lake villa for years. An adventurous spirit, she is vacationing for the first time since the death of her father - her favorite traveling partner.

But nothing can keep her down for long. And she soon spots someone who, she thinks, might make for interesting male companionship. Major Wilshaw (Edward Fox) turns out to be a lot more limited than she would like - as he explains, he has a habit of losing his humor now and then - but Miss Bentley still sees possibilities.

As she explains, she’s a sucker for a man with attractive ears.

Then matters become complicated: An Italian family that Miss Bentley has long been friends with hires a young American, a Miss Beaumont (Uma Thurman), as nanny to their two hellish pre-teen daughters. And on the day that Major Wilshaw, despite Miss Bentley’s ardent entreaties, is supposed to leave, the American beauty cuddles up to the old fool and kisses him goodbye.

Naturally, he now decides to stay for a full month. So the farcical situation goes: Miss Bentley, who herself is pursued by a young Italian man (Allesandro Gassman), pursues Major Wilshaw, who is interested in young Miss Beaumont, who should be out pursuing young Italian men.

Here’s the problem: Redgrave, one of the great screen actresses of her generation, is hard to accept in the role of Miss Bentley.

It’s not that she can’t capture the woman’s adventurous side; she can, whether it be braving the wrath of fascist bullies, smacking a tennis ball or impulsively jumping onto the back of a motorcycle. It’s not even that Redgrave, a tiger of a woman in real life, isn’t capable of toning down her innate fierceness to play a more inhibited character (her moving performance in “Howard’s End” proved that).

It’s just that it’s hard to imagine what a self-possessed woman would want with such a stuffy bird as Major Wilshaw. Redgrave doesn’t have a problem playing inhibited. She just has a problem playing silly.

The situation is only complicated by Thurman. An actress who can play older than her biological age - she’s only 25 - she is at a loss while playing such post-adolescent snots as Miss Beaumont. Sultry in “Henry & June,” knowingly sexy in “Pulp Fiction,” Thurman is merely annoying here.

Clearly, she is not interested in Major Wilshaw. But she pretends to be long enough for him to play the fool and for Miss Bentley to decide whether she’s interested in picking up the pieces.

There’s romance to “A Month By the Lake.” When it dawns on Wilshaw (effectively portrayed by Fox, whose lip is appropriately stiff) that Miss Beaumont is making fun of him, Redgrave’s expression says more than could ever be simply said about empathy and compassion.

And Lake Como, which is so well portrayed (by cinematographer Pasqualino de Santis) that it acts as a separate character, is as picturesque a setting as one could imagine.

Director Irvin, whose long career includes everything from the war-themed “Hamburger Hill” to the sensitive “Widow’s Peak,” has attempted to make a “Month By the Lake” into the same kind of love story as, say, “Enchanted April” or “A Room With a View.”

It’s ironic, but with a couple of lesser actresses he might have enjoyed better success.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: These 2 sidebars appeared with the story: 1. “A Month By the Lake” Location: Magic Lantern Cinemas Credits: Directed by John Sayles, written by Pasqualino de Santis from a short story by H.E. Bates, starring Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Fox, Uma Thurman, Alidi Valli and Alessandro Gassman. Rated: PG Running time: 1:58

2. OTHER VIEWS Here is what other critics say about “A Month by the Lake:” Stephen Holden/New York Times: John Irvin’s film “A Month by the Lake” is an irresistibly likable example of an emergent genre: the movie as a high-toned, sunlit European vacation. Bob Fenster/The Arizona Republic: Vacation is always too many work weeks away. But “A Month by the Lake” might bring that holiday feeling a little closer, if only in your imagination. This mildly amusing British comedy is like many lazy vacations: It goes nowhere, but it’s a pleasant experience anyway. William Arnold/Seattle Post-Intelligencer: “A Month By the Lake” also has the delicious scenery of Lake Como in midsummer, it nicely evokes a laid-back Italy close to fascism. John Scalzi/McClachy News Service: “A Month by the Lake” is another one of those stories in which mildly repressed British types go to Italy and suddenly mellow out considerably - as if they have to travel across an entire continent to enjoy themselves. Maybe it’s the food. Whatever it is, “Month by the Lake” is one of the minor contributions to the genre, not quite up to “Room With a View” or “Enchanted April.” It has its moments, but not enough of them to make the film very interesting for anyone other than the most ardent anglophiles. Jay Carr/The Boston Globe: The last time we saw Vanessa Redgrave, she played a Russian emigree dying of cancer in “Little Odessa.” Here, she’s not only robust, but vibrantly athletic in her pursuit of clenched but kindly Edward Fox at a resort on Italy’s picturesque Lake Como. Chris Hewitt/St. Paul Pioneer Press: Vanessa Redgrave is one of our most fascinating, complex actresses. Nearing 60, she remains a striking beauty seemingly capable of playing any role. In the wayward “A Month by the Lake,” she’s a middle-aged adventurer vacationing in the ‘30s in Italy’s beauteous Lake Como. Also Como-ing is a vampy American played by Uma Thurman … The real clod here is Thurman, who is amazingly bad. Her fight with the intelligent, cool Redgrave isn’t fair because neither has witty dialogue and because Thurman, trying to act coquettish, keeps speaking louder and slower, as if she’s trying to get through to a foreigner.