Product: Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Rating: 3.0
Lighter-Than-Air Film with Most Notable Acting of Diane Lane
The sun is shining in Italy, where you can find a new life. That's all that 'Under the Tuscan Sun' shows. If you still want to find another reason to see it, that's Diane Lane, whose delightful acting as American writer 'Frances' deserves every praise bestowed on this light-weight film.Again I say, the plot is very slim, too slim to hold the weight of the nearly 2 hour film. Frances, newly divorced, buys an old house in a small villa in Tuscany, in which she finds s new way of life, or new way of looking at that.So, she finds a new love in hunky Italian Marcello (Raoul Rova); she finds a new family in the kind-hearted neighbors; she even helps an Italian girl and a Polish boy vow the eternal love (which, ironically she finds, is hard to find). Everything is put in a right place; only that in the fashion of popular romance (and the film is based on the book of the same title by 'Frances' Mayes ... see that?).In fact there is nothing wrong with the film, except that it was done with many cliched techniques -- broken house which represents life, the best friend (Sandra Oh) who is lesbian, and all the Italian boys who never misses the chance to whisper the words of love to the girls. If you are likeky to be irritated with these unoriginality, stay away from 'Tuscan Sun.' As for me, I just pretended that I didn't see them at all.But Dinae Lane. She is so delightful that you may (just 'may') forgive and forget any cloying emotions or banal characters. She even jumps around on the bed, wearing only black underwear, just like Brittney Spears did in 'Crossrards.' You cannot hate her for doing that.See for beautiful Diane Lane, or beautiful Tuscan scenery, and forget about the plot. Three star for them (two for Ms. Lane).