Love, Wine & Salt: A Tuscan Romance

Let me count the ways this movie is eye-poppingly just.....bad? In no particular order? It seems like a high-school drama production. Everything is woodenly or over-acted...you can practically feel the presence of the director, telling the actors, "Now, Everyone LAUGH and act happy!" or "Okay, at this point....all of you look SAD and worried!"....the farmhouse is SO obviously a set, rather than a lived-in house....apparently, they have no employees whatsoever (on a 50 acre vineyard?), and the village "Festival" has a full troupe of renaissance flag-twirlers AND full-band (with two singers), but only about twelve villagers?......and why does this script (apparently written by an Italian) have these Europeans constantly saying "You guys" (as though they're all from Ohio?)....and everyone's nothing but happy when one sister suddenly is knocked-up by a man who lives in a foreign country?....and what was up with Ali's not drinking? Was he (half-Turkish,we're told) suppose to be Muslim, but this plot point just sorta got dropped early on? All in all, this looks like an extended commercial for The Olive Garden (the lighting, the props, etc). The script is absurd, and the acting/blocking is beyond laughable. Honestly.... I found myself, 20 minutes into the movie, wondering if it was somehow a parody of all those "Under the Tuscan Sun" wanna-be's.

There might be a decent story somewhere in this movie, but it is impossible to look past the obvious. Every actor in this movie is working hard to speak English. The accents sound charming, but every line is delivered in an unnatural, stilted manner. Acting in a foreign language is very difficult, and it shows here.

On top of the language issues, the characters themselves are cartoon-ish. Every character trait is played to the extreme. Nothing is subtle. The old man keeps grabbing his rifle, ready to shoot anything. When two characters are interested in each other, they act so obviously that the viewer gets second-hand embarrassment from it. When characters are supposed to be drunk, they stumble around worse than newborn animals.

The setting is lovely, but you need more than a nice backdrop to make a movie work.

Love, Wine & Salt (2024) isn't just a romantic film-it's a sensory journey. Set in the rolling hills and sun-drenched vineyards of Tuscany, the story unfolds like a long summer evening: slow, rich, and just a little bittersweet. It's a film that breathes, lingering on faces, landscapes, and the quiet moments that say more than words ever could.

The plot is elegantly simple, yet layered like a vintage red. A chance encounter. A past left behind. A choice between comfort and passion. But what makes this film stand out isn't the mechanics of its romance-it's the way it embraces imperfection. Love here is not idealized; it's weathered, complex, and tinged with the salt of old wounds and the courage to taste something new.

The cinematography is lush, almost edible. Vineyards stretch to the horizon. Candlelit dinners shimmer under ancient olive trees. Close-ups of wine-stained lips and salt-speckled skin create an intimacy that feels both grounded and poetic. You can almost taste the Chianti and hear the cicadas in the background.

The performances are quietly magnetic. The leads don't fall into cliché-they glide around it, delivering characters who are wounded but still open to wonder. There's a maturity in their chemistry, a sense that this love isn't just about youth or urgency, but about recognizing beauty where it was once forgotten.

Love, Wine & Salt is a romantic film for grownups-not because it's cynical, but because it dares to be sincere. It reminds us that the best things in life are not sweet or bitter, but both. Like love. Like wine. Like salt.