For the first half hour, during which a group of embittered British women named the Scorpione terrorise '30s Florence, the film almost lives up to the promise, dishing out acerbic one-liners left, right and centre, and allowing the actresses to flex their respective acting muscles. But then, inexplicably, the script runs out of gas and ambles along at a pace that will have some people falling asleep in their popcorn and others dashing out to the concessions stand, returning to find that absolutely nothing has happened while they've been gone. The plot - the women are betrayed by Mussolini and face possible persecution at the hands of his army - is too simplistic to stretch over nearly two hours, relying on the performances (which are, admittedly uniformly good) to keep the audience interested. The locales and art direction are sumptuous (Cher's costumes are simply stunning) but as we're always being told, looks aren't everything. It's what's inside that counts. In the case of Tea With Mussolini, that's not a great deal.