Product: Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Rating: 2.0
Save some money and buy the book.
A couple of years ago I was given for Chrismas Frances Mayes' popular story of her adventures in Tuscany as a new owner of a dilapidated villa which she painstakingly restored, not without many adventures and misadventures. As Mayes discovered, Italy was most unlike her home in San Francisco and the Italian people she met did not share many of her values. The fun of the book was watching Mayes adapt to her new home and neighbors.I thought, mistakenly as it turns out, that the Hollywood film of her book would be faithful, at least in part, to her experiences in Italy. Unfortunatley, I was unable to recognize much of her original story in the Hollywood version of the book.In Amazon's spotlight review for this movie, Samuel McKewon does an excellent job in his critique of the film and I will not repeat any of his comments. I agree with McKewon even if most readers of his review do not.The book and movie are called "Under the Tuscan Sun." We have some right to expect that Tuscany will play an important part in the film. Not so. The film opens with Mayes, played by Diane Lane, losing much of her property in a painful divorce. We are led to believe she is left with little money to begin her new life. We will find out that we are wrong in this inference.Mayes' friends give her a first class ticket to Tuscany. When she arrives, she leaves her tour almost immediately to purchase a run down villa in Cortina owned by an old contessa. The contessa drives a hard bargain, too steep for the Italian couple who compete with Mayes to buy the place. While Mayes herself is bargaining unsuccessfully with the contessa, a pidgeon defecates on her head. This is a sign for the contessa that Mayes should be the new owner of her 300 year old villa. This incident with the pidgeon is a warning to the viewer that the film is about to go into the toilet.When Mayes buys the house it is badly run down so she hires an old Italian carpenter and his three Polish assistants to rebuild the villa. A year later the three Polish workmen are still attempting to finish their repairs. Where Mayes got the money to buy the villa and pay three workmen for a year to do repairs is a mystery left unsolved. In fact, the only part the villa and workmen play in the story is as comic relief. Instead, we watch Mayes attempt to bring romance and love back into her life. For an intelligent, sophisticated women, she seems to be incredibly inept and immature.In the book the story of her adventures rebuilding her villa had a charm sadly missing in the film, which turned out to be a soap opera of her lovelife among the Italians. Instead of buying the film, viewers are advised to save their money and invest instead in the much cheaper paperback book. Here they will find the real Frances Mayes meeting and learning to love her new Italian neigbors.