Product: Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Rating: 1.0
An Unrealistic Worldview
Movies approach responses to pain in either one of two ways: embrace the pain and fight through to experience breakthroughs in character, or avoid the pain as much as possible and recreate your life. Robert Duvall finds out his wife is having an affair in The Apostle and embarks on a journey of spiritual healing and personal revival. Diane Lane finds out her husband is having an affair in Under the Tuscan Sun and she runs to Italy, becomes determined to make her own fun, and sleeps with a man she just met.The problem is, her philosophy just doesn't work in real life. Can anybody honestly say that hiding our pain behind wine, romance, and laughter permanently heals the wounds? Are they not going to resurrect themselves later in even uglier ways? Ironically, it doesn't work for the Diane Lane character either, but her disappointment is more of a plot construction than a message to viewers about the folly of pain management.You owe it to yourself. Be happy. Make yourself feel better, whatever it takes. Isn't that kind of hedonism the baseline for crack addicts, drunks, and promiscuous folks? I would write this movie off as a harmless romp with beautiful scenery, but with characters representing divisive views on pregnancy, lesbianism, and sexual liberty, the movie's creator had far more in mind than a simple romantic comedy. This movie has a message. But the message celebrates the myth of pain avoidance, and that is a worldview far from reality.