Product: Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Rating: 4.0
Now is time for a Film review
Diane Lane is a solid actress who has always found herself attached to strangely unsatisfying films. This one suffers from that syndrome as well, or perhaps it actually benefits from it.Most modern "women's" pictures are about sex. If a woman is unattached we are to assume she will have her legs wrapped instantly around a man who will moreover be her "soul mate" though he or she may need some convincing. The strange thing is you see "Mr. Darcy" largely from frame one. Jane Austen would be horrified and amazed how her formula had been distorted.Here we even have "the best friend" asking has Lane met "him" yet. We are to assume that if you go to Tuscany you are bound to instantly find True Love. But this film does not deliver. I understand many liberties were taken with the book. Wow, they made a book into a movie and they changed it. Do tell.Though it is not a great film, this is the movie that could. I laughed, I actually cried - at first because the countryside is SO beautiful and then because it got to me.Sure there are strange flourishes with the supporting cast that make little sense. The lady who plays the former protégé of Fellini is so odd I thought our heroine had a stroke and was seeing ghosts. But overall it was a delightful experience. To those folks who are jumping all over Ms. Lane because she's "past her prime" I say: Keep living, you'll be over 40 someday too. We'll laugh at you then.Part culture lesson, part travelogue, with just the right amount of misdirected romance. And Ms. Lane providing that swirl of chaos, lovely.