Tea with Mussolini

Set in Florence in the 1930s, Tea with Mussolini follows Luca, a young Italian boy left without his mother and unwanted by his father. He is taken in by Mary Wallace, an Englishwoman living in Italy, and raised among her circle of cultured expatriate friends, a group of British and American women who gather for tea and admire Benito Mussolini. Their comfortable lives are upended as the fascist regime turns against foreigners, and the women must reckon with the political movement they once regarded with affection.

Franco Zeffirelli directed the film, the ninth in the chronological list of his features, working from a screenplay by John Mortimer. The story draws on Zeffirelli's own childhood, and the cast is led by Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Cher and Lily Tomlin, with Baird Wallace as Luca. Made on a budget of about 12 million dollars, it earned roughly 21 million worldwide.

On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.9 from around 15,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.4 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 6.1 from 39 reviews places it slightly below the audience scores on IMDb.