Tea with Mussolini

Loosely based on his childhood, Zeffirelli weaves this enchanting tale with a gentle, loving hand. It is the story of a diverse group of cultured ladies, living in Florence in 1934, who meet for tea each afternoon. The group includes Lady Random (Maggie Smith), widow of the British ambassador to Italy, Arabella (Judy Dench) an artist and singer, Georgie (Lily Tomlin), an exuberant American archaeologist, and the brash and uninhibited Elsa (Cher). One of the ladies, Mary (Joan Plowright), becomes a surrogate mother to a young boy, Luca, and he is soon virtually adopted and brought up by the group. As Luca grows to become a man, the shifting political climate begins to have a devastating impact on the rarified world in which the ladies exist, and they must come to terms not only with their own mortality but also the inescapable passage of time.