Margherita Buy and Stefano Accorsi
“A FIVE STAR LIFE” My rating: B (Opens Aug. 28 at the Leawood)
85 minutes | MPAA rating: No MPAA rating
Irene (Margherita Buy) has what many of us would consider a dream job. She works for a Rome-based outfit that rates luxury hotels.
This means that on any given working day she boards a plane for some exotic destination and checks into a hotel where the rooms can cost thousands per night.
One installed, she pulls on white gloves and goes over the room looking for dust. She has a checklist in her head of important details: Does the desk clerk look her in the eye? Is the bellhop’s uniform properly pressed?
A stopwatch lets her precisely time how long it takes for room service to respond. And Irene also watches how other guests are treated…like the proletarian honeymooners who clearly have never before enjoyed such posh circumstances and who are mostly ignored by the snooty staff.
Irene eats in the hotels’ celebrated restaurants, enjoys the floor shows in their night spots, and subjects herself to spa treatments.
All this is done in secret. Irene is a sort of spy, a “mystery guest” who ultimately will turn in a report that determines how many cherished stars an establishment can boast of in the travel books.
Butler's Cinema Scene 