Product: Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Rating: 5.0
A warm, easy to enjoy tale of remaking one's life
In a way, I liked this movie a lot more than perhaps I ought. For one thing, I am a guy, and this is very definitely a chick flick (hint for the guys: a great movie to take her on a date). It is also a tad predictable, though it is not without a few surprises. And at times it feels more like a succession of postcards than a film, so perfect does Tuscany look throughout the picture.So why did I enjoy it so much? First, because of the very wonderful performance of Diane Lane as Frances Mayes, the real life author of the book upon which this film is based (and which I must confess I have not read). In my mind, Lane has always been way, way underutilized by Hollywood. She has always shown herself to be an actress of the highest caliber, but for some reason she has not always been granted the kinds of roles that she ought to have received. She is onscreen in this film for very nearly the entire length, and the film is all the better for that. She is also quite beautiful in a seemingly accessible way, and I really loved watching her marvelously expressive face throughout the film.Although the film really does, as I mentioned above, seem sometimes like a succession of postcards or the pictures of a Tuscan calendar, there is no question that the film is surreally beautiful. The town of Cartona looks so exquisite that one is immediately seized with dreams of winning the lottery and moving therewith. It is quite easy to understand why anyone would love to live in such a marvelous place. And the brief scenes in Positano make it look like a perhaps even more beautiful spot than Cartona. There is no question: this is a very gorgeous movie to look at, though perhaps a tad too perfect. One begins to wonder if there were imperfections in the region that the camera chose to ignore. But no matter; this is a fantasy, and the beauty was quite appropriate to the mood of the film.The villa that she purchases more or less becomes one of the major characters in the film. It is lovely thing, a bit dilapidated at the beginning, but by the end of the film it is transformed to something cared for and caring in return. The prospect from the villa is breathtaking, with the gently rolling hills filling most of the view, with mountains in the distant. Her bedroom is definitely a room with a view. This is all played to great advantage in the remarkable scene were a lightening storm seems to ravage the area, with a lightening bolt striking a washing machine in her front yard, and with an owl flying into her bedroom to escape the chaos outside.Finally, I enjoyed the collection of friends--for such they became in the end--in Tuscany. Although Frances goes there as a stranger, by the end of the film she possesses a large and wide-ranging group of friends. One comes to like and know them all, and feel some of the affection for them that Frances feels.This is not one of the great films one is likely to see this year or any other, but it is a warm, likable, beautiful film, and it is hard to imagine many not giving in to its charms.