A Cure for the Winter Blues

Tell me if you’re anything like me. At this time of year, I am dying for Spring–and technically it is, in fact, Spring, but it sure doesn’t feel like it. The winters in the Chicago area are particularly brutal, not due to frigid temperatures as one might think, but due to how interminable Chicago winters can be. Gloomy gray skies and cold weather sometimes last well into May, which can be both maddening and incredibly demoralizing. 

In a state of weather-related frustration the other day, I turned to one of my all-time favorite movies to cheer me up: Enchanted April (which you can rent from Amazon Prime for the bargain-basement price of $3.59). Directed by Mike Newell and starring British acting gems Miranda Richardson, Josie Lawrence, Polly Walker, Joan Plowright, Alfred Molina, Michael Kitchen, and Jim Broadbent, Enchanted April is a British film set in post-WWII London. It tells the story of two women–Lotty Wilkins (played by Josie Lawrence) and Rose Arbuthnot (played by Miranda Richardson)--who are unhappy in their marriages and who, upon seeing an ad in the local newspaper to rent a “castle in Italy” full of “wisteria and sunshine,” long to escape their lives (and husbands) in rainy London. Lotty impulsively approaches Rose and ultimately convinces her to rent the castle with her. To offset costs, they invite two other women–Lady Caroline Dester, an incredibly beautiful, young socialite who wants to get away from the people who are constantly “grabbing” at her, and Mrs. Fisher, an elderly widow stuck in the past–to join them.

What happens when they arrive at the castle, San Salvatore, is simply magical. Inspired by the incredible natural beauty that surrounds them–the Mediterranean Sea, the mossy rocks, the exuberant flowers that seem to be growing everywhere–the four women, each with their own set of personal problems, begin to heal. Given the time alone, the time to think, and the time to experience the healing power of Nature, they become more loving, both to each other and then, by extension, to the men in their lives. 

“. . . this was the simple happiness of complete harmony with her surroundings, the happiness that asks for nothing, that just accepts, just breathes, just is.” 

It’s odd, because I’ve watched this film numerous times over the years, but I never read the novel that it was based on–The Enchanted April, by Elizabeth von Arnim–until now.

Von Arnim’s novel goes much deeper into the lives of the four women, and why they are so eager to escape their situations. You find, for example, that Rose Arbuthnot, is a very religious person whose religious views have alienated her from her husband, who writes smutty books about fallen women for a living, but she longs desperately to reconnect with him. Lady Caroline Dester seems to have it all; she is incredibly beautiful, wealthy, young, and worshiped by everyone she comes into contact with, but the love of her life was killed in the war, and she is still reeling from it, unable to “smooth her feathers.” 

In my opinion, Peter Barnes did a tremendous job on the film’s screenplay, successfully capturing many of von Arnim’s cleverest and most humorous descriptions (I’m thinking of the bath scene, in particular, and Lotty’s husband Mellersh musing to himself on how “a second person was always useful in a country whose language one did not speak for holding things, for waiting with the luggage [my emphasis]". The novel, though, really allows you to enter the minds of these four women and to follow their paths to healing. 

Elizabeth von Arnim wrote The Enchanted April after staying at a castello in Portofino with some friends in April of 1921. And the best part is that you can actually visit this castle, called Castle Brown, today; the Municipality of Portofino purchased it and turned it into a museum and event venue! https://www.castellobrown.com/en

I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely going to pay a visit the next time I’m lucky enough to travel to Italy.