Sotto il sole della Toscana

OK, first of all a heads up... I'm a British man of 56, having just watched this on the TV on a lazy Sunday afternoon, when I could of been catching up with Glastonbury or the football (Euro 2016). Not, I guess, the target audience.

Well, as I sat there on the sofa with my cuppa, enjoying the scenery, and this striking lady who I hadn't seen before, (trust me, I know Diane now, and have a list of her films to watch), I just became entranced.

I know I'm being manipulated, the mass of stereotypes, the fact (unlike most of us) she can just cash buy a villa on a whim, BUT, I gave in and went for the ride, and it couldn't of been better. I didn't want it to end, the feel good, the decent people, the Tuscan sun! Add in fellow Brit Lindsay Duncan's great performance, the ensemble cast, and you have a joy to watch which surely will make anyone feel better.

In "Under the Tuscan Sun", a recently divorced American writer/critic (Lane) ventures to Italy where she sets about putting the pieces of her shattered life back together in the rustic, bucolic, scenic countryside of Tuscany. Lane registers a fine performance in this lighthearted drama spritzed with humor and romance which is as lovely as it is clumsy. Obvious in its attempts to tug at the heart-strings of romantics with all the expected Italian stereotypes and cliches, this flick received mixed reviews and will resonate most with more mature sentimentalists. Those who enjoy this film may want to check out V. Redgrave in "A Month by the Lake" (1995). (B)

"Under the Tuscan Sun" is a polarizing film that seems to leave viewers (and critics) either in love with a story of growth and renewal or dismissive of its line. I'm firmly in the former camp.

Based so loosely on Frances Mayes's own account of her regeneration in beautiful Italy as to carry an end credit pronouncing that substantial fictionalization replaced key true details, writer and director Audrey Wells crafted a stunning vehicle for Diane Lane whose radiance projects from the screen powerfully. And in every scene.

Diane Lane, as the changed-from-the-memoir Frances, abandons San Francisco after her never shown cad husband divorces her, getting the house she once loved. Frances is a writer and literary critic. Why does she leave S.F.? Two of her closest friends give her a ticket for a gay bus tour of Italy and she jumps off the bus to look into a ramshackle old country house up for sale. Impetuosity? Definitely. Believable? Yes, actually.

Frances' new house isn't a handyman's special, it's a contractor's assurance of food on the table for a very long time. Frances adapts to the house and the locals with remarkable aplomb. Tuscany is sunny but its light fades before Frances's challenged but resilient commitment to not just restore a house but to create a home. The two aren't the same. I'm not sure how many male directors could so well create that reality.

Director Wells tells the story from a woman's heart but with a breadth of humor and drama that should appeal to anyone who wants to believe, or needs to hope, that there really is a light at the end of the tunnel of marital infidelity and dissolution.

Supporting Diane Lane is Sandra Oh as Patti, her closest friend. In relatively short scenes, Ms. Oh displays a lively and laconic grasp not only of her friend's life but also of her own which is not, as they say today, devoid of "issues."

Lindsay Duncan is Katharine, an older woman determined to hold on to her now fading attractiveness through a blend of humor, earthiness - and alcohol. Her character may be predictable but she's also fun.

Raoul Bova has garnered some press attention as handsome Marcello, the romantically available and affluent Italian. That's a character we've seen in many, many films and Bova delivers an expectedly satisfactory but hardly deep performance.

Yes, Diane Lane is beautiful but there is much more to her acting than a shining appearance. Her facial gestures, mirroring her emotions as they shift from moment to moment, are the product of extraordinary acting ability. And her character draws a powerful portrayal.

Credit also must go to cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson. Perhaps it would be impossible for a blind camera director to turn in anything but a gorgeous visage of rural and urban Italy but Simpson did do a marvelous job of making the locales come alive.

This is a film for adults, for people who can understand pain and the search for recovery and understand the difficulty of coming back from a space that once offered the mirage of safety and security.

I loved this film.

9/10.

So, I've heard this film got the beating because it wasn't like the book? Ah, well, trust me; I'm a huge book-lover (and Harry Potter fan), so I can say that if I had read the book and was an immense fan, I probably wouldn't have liked the film if it had taken the basis out of the original story. I truly sympathize with those of you who disliked this film because it did not go with the book in some way or another. ;)

Although, since I love writing myself, I have a very wonderful relationship with this film and its delicious scenery, how the characters in it build in confidence, and the whimsical things that seem to be thrown in it artfully. Yes, there are some so-called "cliches", which is a word I hate using. We use that word to describe things that happen every day in our life, things that repeat themselves in storybooks and films and are heard so often that we are likely to vomit with expectancy of it all. But the thing that hit me about this film is that a lot of things happen that you really don't expect. The coming-of-age story has been told for ages, and will be expressed forever, with all its little tidbits of similar goings-on (serious situation happens, main character finds escape, love, broken heart, confusion..etc.). I don't think an entire genre of literature can deny its existence, now, can it? :)

The acting is superb, and it has a lot of light-hearted moments that lift it up. It's basically about accepting yourself before you can truly find "Mr.Right", and realizing that you shouldn't put the blame on yourself for every single thing in your life that happens, and about taking chances because life can have pros and cons. I even think that some men would like it. This film was very inspiring to me, and although I didn't see it in theaters, I left my couch feeling very creative and content, as if I wasn't the only one who got inspiration from the little things life seems to hand out.

Admittedly, I was surprised. This isn't the type of movie that normally appeals to me, and yet I was really quite taken with it on a number of counts. It could be described as a very gentle movie (even mildly spiritual in some ways) full of sage advice about life and how to handle the disappointments that naturally appear, and - being somewhat stereotypically Italian in its presentation - it has a lot about love and romance and flirtatiousness in it. It even packs a bit of humour. Not a typical guy's movie, but still very pleasant viewing. What I particularly liked was the premise that essentially started the whole thing off. Frances (in a great performance by Diane Lane) discovers that her husband is having an affair, and they end up divorced - and, she being the primary bread winner - he gets the house and alimony. The lesson? When your life falls apart, move on to something completely different and start picking up the pieces. Frances buys a villa in Tuscany and restarts her life, with us watching. Her problems aren't solved. She seems to think that everything revolves around finding a man and romance, but - as her friend Martini points out near the end of the movie - she ends up with everything she wanted - just not in the way she expected to get it.

At times, it's a bit slow-paced, and it's not "exciting" in the way we think of the word, but it's got a quality that draws you into it. As far as the story is concerned, my only quibble might be the introduction of the character of "Ed" right at the end of the movie. Everything to that point had led to the understanding that Frances didn't need romance to be fulfilled; she had found her fulfillment with the people she had assembled around her, who had become a surrogate family. I suppose it's nice that she found someone to love, but the movie on the whole would have been more satisfying if it had ended with the gathering at the dinner table with all her friends - without Ed! That was an unsatisfying intrusion into an otherwise satisfying story. 7/10