Product: Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Rating: 2.0
Nothing to write home about
Early on in "Under the Tuscan Sun," Diane Lane's character Frances, a writer dumped by her husband and now on a gay tour of Tuscany, helps out a fellow American by writing a postcard to send to his mother. He takes one look at her flowery, overwrought prose and throws it down in disgust, saying, "Mom will never believe I wrote that!" Like the words on that postcard, there are many cringe-worthy moments in this film.We get a homogenized, romanticized view of Tuscany, the way most middle-aged American women who feel unloved by their cloddy spouses might imagine it. Stereotypes abound--there's the red-hot younger Italian lover (named Marcello, of course) whose broken English is supposed to be charming; the free-spirited, batty English woman (the fabulous Lindsay Duncan trapped inside a cliche) who takes joy in shocking the locals; the star-crossed young lovers; the elderly man still pining for his dead love; and the sassy yet approachable gay friend.Diane Lane is stunning as usual, but she mugs for the camera and hams it up a la Julia Roberts or Meg Ryan in too many instances, as if the audience might be too stupid to pick up on nuanced emotion. She's played unhappy characters of this age before, and much more subtly and convincingly, in "Unfaithful" and "A Walk on the Moon."The views of Tuscany are gorgeous and motivation enough to make you want to drop everything and run off to Italy, even if the film itself is a forgettable, sometimes fun romp.