Product: Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Rating: 2.0
cloudy skies over Italy
Though officially based on a true story - the autobiographical bestseller by Frances Mayes - "Under the Tuscan Sun" plays like one of those slick fiction "women's pictures" (now called "chick flicks") from the 1950's and 1960's in which a beautiful woman (usually played by Lana Turner or Jean Seberg), unlucky in the ways of love, heads to Europe in the hopes of finding true romance in the arms of the heavily-accented man of her dreams.This glossy, shallow and superficial soap opera stars Diane Lane as Frances, a semi-successful writer who discovers that her husband is cheating on her with another woman. After the divorce, in which somehow the husband has managed to finagle almost everything including the house away from her as part of the settlement, Frances agrees to go on a gay bus tour through Italy that two lesbian friends have set up for her. While on a stopover in Tuscany, the usually far-from-impulsive Frances decides, on the spur of the moment, to purchase a villa replete with bad plumbing and acres upon acres of olive trees. Without any discernible source of income to make it all possible, Frances divides her time between making major repairs on the place and cavorting all over the Italian countryside, having "adventures" with the colorful native and immigrant population and falling under the spell of the handsome young Italian who always seems to be just waiting in the wings in stories such as these. But is he really the right man for her? Needless to say, with all this going on, we don't see this "author" getting a whole lot of writing done during this overseas sojourn (though, at the end, we find that she`s somehow managed - apparently off-camera - to write a whole book about her experiences here).Diane Lane is so fine an actress that she is able to make even this hokey pablum almost believable at times. For the most part, though, the film is a case of missed opportunities. For instance, nothing whatsoever is done with the gay tour aspect of the plot (one suspects that the film might have been more interesting had Frances STAYED on the bus rather than gotten off, as I`m sure a group of gay guys would have known how to have more fun in Italy than she does), and Frances' own story winds up taking a back seat to a bland Romeo and Juliet-type subplot and a whole host of stereotypical minor characters. Every time Lane begins to bring some depth and reality to her character, the romantic fantasy trappings pile on to overwhelm her.Apart from Lane's performance and the eye-popping views of the Italian landscape, "Under the Tuscan Sun" offers little for the non-armchair traveler to feast on.