Product: Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Rating: 2.0
A Good Performance in A Dismal Film
A while ago we saw Diane Lane give a terrific performance in the movie "Unfaithful", which was a remake of Claude Chabrol's "La Femme Infidel". The film itself was uneven, but Diane Lane was so good as the straying wife that she was nominated for an Academy Award.In "Under The Tuscan Sun" Diane Lane once again gives a very good performance. The problem is that "Under the Tuscan Sun" is not even half the film that "Unfaithful" was. I don't really like defining movies as chick flicks or otherwise, but there's really no other way to describe this one. And it's a movie for not very discerning chicks at that.It's based on Francis Mayes book of the same name, a book that hit the bestseller lists largely because it was the stuff of many a middle-class fantasy: one day I'm going to walk away from all this and get back to a simpler live in the countryside of Provence, or Sardinia, or Greece, or Tuscany.The book has its devoted fans. It also has its ardent critics, most of whom were put off by Francis Mayes' egocentricity and her somewhat patronising view of the quaint locals. So self-involved is the writer that many readers can't even figure out who the mysterious man is that is accompanying her as the villa in Tuscany gets renovated. A husband? A lover? Or what?Well, whatever he is Audrey Wells, the writer and director of the film didn't want him around. She felt that the story of a couple renovating a house didn't have enough dramatic potential, so in this version Diane Lane's character discovers her husband has been unfaithful, divorces him, and heads off to Italy to rebuild her life and her heart. That, of course, makes this all very much a chick flick. It even has all the clichés that such a film should have. Jokes about women's liking for chocolate. The gay best friend Patti (played by Sandra Oh). In fact there's a whole coach load of gay friends in this one. There's the old meet cute. There's the woman who is divorced but whom virtually every man seems to fancy. There's a childbirth scene. And a wedding scene. And of course there's the dashing European, Marcello (Raoul Bova), who is just as fickle as the husband she has just divorced but who is revealed to be not quite so nasty because ... well ... he's continental. When a married Italian guy or two go after our heroine, it's OK because they are European and it's expected. When her American husband does the same thing it's grounds for divorce. And of course, you just know that this estrogen fest has to have a new and more long lasting love in it somewhere, even if that love does take a long time to turn up. There's also a character who's intended to be one of the girlz in a "Sex and the City" kind of way, but is actually quite a sad case, something the movie avoids pointing except for one brief scene, and then takes back by the end.It's awful.I'm sorry. I know that some women who want solace for the soul or the broken heart may get something from it. But it's a terrible movie. It's all so calculating and by the numbers. I don't think a romantic movie cliché is missed from beginning to end, although they're also all overlaid here with a kind of half baked politically correct liberalism. Do women really want a Latin lover who says, and I'm not kidding: "I am going to make love all over you". I've seen porn movies like that that, but is this really the stuff of romance?But you should know what to expect. Audrey Wells previously wrote that other major victimised chick flick: "The Truth About Cats and Dogs." That's another film that some women found a devastating reflection of men's simple minded obsession with physical beauty without realising that it was actually "Cyrano de Bergerac" in reverse, and thus just as critical of the distaff side as of testosterone poisoned males.I can't even say, for "Under the Tuscan Sun" that it's beautifully photographed. Geoffrey Simpson is the cinematographer. But Tuscany is so beautiful that no one could help capturing some of its beauties, or if they could they should be shot, and not merely by a camera.The only reason to watch "Under the Tuscan Sun" is the luminous Diane Lane."The film itself is terrible, and manipulative, but if you're willing to sit through all this nonsense for a wonderful performance by the beautiful, but by Hollywood terms over the hill, Diane Lane, you might get something from it. Otherwise forget it.