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Mini Movie Review:
"Under the Tuscan Sun" is a glorious example of a movie that is just a pleasure to see. Diane Lane is as talented
as she is beautiful to watch on the silver screen. This movie is hers, and she shines in it. The landscape of Tuscany is as
gorgeous and as romantic as ever, and, finally, the local people in this movie are portrayed with a soft, loving, and very
affectionate brush.
Purists can, and have, nit picked around the edges of this movie for being pure escapism, but so what? There is always
room in my book for a movie like this where I can walk out of the theater happy with the feeling that my money and my time
have been well spent. With every thing else going on in the world, there is nothing wrong with that.
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MOVIE CRITIQUE:
"Under the Tuscan Sun" is like an Impressionist painting. The romance and the visual splendor of it all make
for an immensely entertaining movie.
If Paris is the City of Love, then Italy is the Country of Love. And if Italy is the Country of Love, then Tuscany is
surely the Heart of Love in that very lovely country.
Tuscany is one of those lovely regions that has received reams of favorable press in recent years. Everyone who is anyone,
it seems, has purchased a centuries old villa in Tuscany and has then invested their later years along with a not inconsiderable
fortune updating their very own little treasured piece of pricey Italian real estate into something suitable for the lifestyle
of today's wealthy elite.
The joy of any movie is buying into the premise and then going along for the ride. "Under the Tuscan Sun" is
quite a nice ride, and I don't even care if the book by Frances Mayes tells a different story. All that I know is that I sure
enjoyed this story! This movie is like an Architectural Digest version of Tuscany with the added visual splendor of Diane
Lane thrown in for good measure. The depth of color and the joie de vie in this movie add a resonance that more than adequately
hides its rather formulaic plot and escapist story line.
If parts of the movie fail in logic or in practicality, so what? Who expects every movie to be practical? If movies were
always practical and logical, then the cinema as an industry would have died out 50 years ago. If I weren't able to suspend
my sense of logic and proportion for more than half the movies I saw, I wouldn't enjoy very many movies and I certainly wouldn't
be wasting my time writing these movie reviews. After all, even that's too impractical...
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MOVIE SYNOPSIS:
Francis Mayes (Diane Lane) is a highly regarded author who also works for a major San Francisco newspaper as a book reviewer
and critic. At a book signing a stranger walks up to her and introduces himself as an author whose book she had recently panned
as being too improbable.
"What's so improbable about a middle aged man running around with a bunch of young girls?" he asks her with
a hint of malevolence in his voice. Francis replies that this is an all too common male fantasy to be regarded as generally
true. "Well, go look at your husband," he sneers as he walks away, happy to have repaid her written barbs with an
arrow to her heart.
Shortly thereafter she is conferring with her attorney about his proposed divorce settlement offer. The problem is that
Francis is the primary wage earner of the two of them, and he wants alimony support. But, don't worry, her attorney (Jeffrey
Tambor) tells her, he has offered to waive the alimony payments if she gives him their expensive San Francisco home. It seems
that he, the rat that he is, has bedded his mistress there and she has come to like both the house and the school district
in which it is located.
Francis quickly moves into a downtown transient hotel for the newly divorced. Some are happy and sexually active and others
are bewailing their fate and crying all night long. One of the latter requires a rapping on the wall by Francis so that she
can get her much needed rest. All in all, the hotel is in a sadly shabby condition, but much more so for the fractured clients
living there than for the condition of the place itself.
Francis is soon celebrating the divorce with her two best friends, an older lesbian couple who have a reason to celebrate
of their own. One of the lovers, Patti (Sandra Oh), has been artificially impregnated and is now in her first trimester. Their
good fortune turns out to be Francis' good fortune as well, as they had purchased a prepaid vacation trip for gays to Tuscany,
Italy, a trip that they now can no longer take due to Patti's delicate condition.
Francis initially turns down their generous offer as she has her work commitments to attend to. But after one too many
nights in her bleak house for the newly divorced, she changes her mind and takes them up on their offer. Don't worry, they
tell her, she will be able to enjoy the trip as no one will hit on her, the sole heterosexual along on this ride.
Flash forward a week or two to a bus filled with party minded travelers going through the beautiful countryside of Tuscany.
Everyone is carefree and happy as the bus pulls into Cortona, a small town in the heart of the region. They pour out of the
bus and spread out all over this small atmospheric, medieval town.
The town square filled with farmers offering their wares captures Francis' attention. She is in particular entranced by
a very voluptuous older woman with flamboyantly long wavy blonde hair partially hidden under a huge, wide brimmed hat. Francis
watches as she caresses a baby duckling by sensuously moving it up and down her cheek as it peeps back at her. The whole scene
is surreal in its intense warmth and sunlit sensuality. The market, the old town square, the warm sunlight, the cacophony
of sights and sounds of everyone buying and weighing produce for sale, and the sight of this strange woman all capture the
fancy of Francis. She immediately falls in love with it all.
While walking down a side street, her attention is diverted by a real estate office with pictures of the local villas
for sale posted in the window. One home in particular captures her attention, a colorful home in the middle of an olive orchard
called "Bramasolé." Lost in reverie, Francis is startled by the blonde from the market square passing behind her
and whispering in her ear "Bramasolé" and proclaiming it to be a delight.
But time is flying by and the tour bus will wait for no one. All are in high spirits and loudly singing as the bus heads
out of town. Suddenly Francis spies a forlorn looking home with a for sale sign on the front wall facing the street. It is
the very same villa she had seen the listing for back in Cortona. "Stop!" she shouts, and soon is wondering if she
has lost her mind as the bus disappears down the street while she stands there with her suitcases not knowing quite what to
do next.
Francis walks into the house just in time to interrupt a negotiating session between the owner, the elderly Contessa (Laura
Pestillini) with her English speaking real estate broker, Martini (Vincent Riotta), trying to settle on a price for the villa
with a couple of noveau riche Americans. On a lark, Francis offers more for the villa and then the couple up the ante further.
Sensing a bidding war looming, the Contessa raises the offering price of her ancestral home to an unreasonable level, causing
the other couple to depart the villa in anger.
Francis is left alone with the two of them to settle on a price. This is all I can offer, she says, but the Contessa remains
unconvinced until a pigeon flying through the open window poops all over Francis' forehead. The Contessa is somehow convinced
that this is a sign from God and the deal is sealed.
I have heard some complain that nobody acts like this on a lark, especially a single woman. The latter part of this statement
is sexist and the former is patently incorrect. I know better when it comes to those special areas that are so beautiful that
they capture the heart and the soul of many who visit them. It is often love at first sight, like a homecoming for the heart.
For myself, one of the first things I look at in a newly discovered haven of beauty is the pictures of homes for sale in the
local newspaper or posted on the window of the area's real estate offices.
One can also quibble here about Francis being able to buy a multi acre (that "takes two days for an oxen to plow")
villa with an olive grove in Tuscany from what is left of her portion of the divorce settlement. After all, this is probably
one of the few areas of the world where the real estate is at least as expensive as in the Bay area.
And one can quibble about her interviewing contractors to repair the place and being lucky enough to hire the best one
based on looks and trust alone (along with some much needed help from the real estate broker, Martini, who has grown into
being a close friend). I've found through long years of sad experience that the charlatans in the business are exactly the
ones who are able to spin a good story as to their professional capabilities.
No, I accepted all of the above on face value. My only real complaint with this part of the movie is the sudden occurrence
of a summer thunderstorm that has lightening strikes of almost Biblical proportions. I found this to be somewhat corny and
hokey and certainly overly dramatic. Having a discarded refrigerator lying outside the house struck by lightening and flying
off the ground is far too melodramatic for my tastes besides adding nothing to the story.
In any event, Francis lucks into the right contractor who happens to employ Polish aliens from the area. During the course
of their work on Bramasolé they all come to admire her and the older ones carry a torch for her with the result that other
than the standard mishaps, like the second floor ceiling falling in, the villa is eventually completed in a reasonable period
of time for what is doubtless an unrealistically low price.
The time frame is unknown for this project and it is only after the villa is completed that we see Francis hard at work
at her computer sending her book reviews back to the San Francisco newspaper that we now find is still employing her. I was
beginning to wonder how all this renovation work was being paid for.
The middle of this movie strikes off in quite a few very different and equally charming areas. On a visit into town Francis
by sheer good fortune runs into an Italian "Adonis," Marcello (Raoul Bova), who wins her heart and her body when
he brings her home to his family in Positano, a small Italian town located somewhere on the mountainous coastline of Italy
an hour or so from Cortona. Well, these things happen when you are beautiful, especially in the movies. Whether or not their
relationship will last is another matter, because everything in the lives of these two new commuter lovers conspires against
them.
Secondly, a very pregnant Patti all of a sudden shows up on the doorstep of Bramasolé. It turns out that her lover has
gotten cold feet at having to face the responsibility of parenthood and has left her. Having nowhere else to go, Patti flies
over to her good friend for shelter and support. Patti is a sweet person and adds a great deal of charming personality to
this movie as she offers a well balanced counterpoint to Francis.
Francis also meets and becomes good friends with that flamboyant blonde she had first seen in the market square. Katherine
(Lindsay Duncan) is a British expatriate who came to Italy as a teenager and never left. She met Frederico Fellini during
the filming of his "La Dolce vita"(1960) and he complimented her on her youthful beauty. As a personal homage to
this master filmmaker, Katherine ever since has adopted the character of Sylvia (played by Anita Ekberg) as her own with her
long, wavy blonde hair and wide brimmed hats giving her the striking appearance that so entranced Francis. Still beautiful
even though near or in her seventies, Katherine is able to command the sexual attentions of men far younger than herself for
her personal pleasure.
Finally, Francis, like all of us who grow to love any new area, enjoys the company and friendship of many of the people
of Cortona. Throughout it al she remains close to the real estate agent, Martini, who acts as her translator when necessary.
He carries a deep admiration, perhaps even an unrequited love, for his new American client. However, nothing will ever happen
between them as he is happily married and a man of honor besides.
She also gets to know the family living next door as the youngest of her Polish workers, Pawel (Pawel Szadia), has fallen
deeply in love with their daughter, Fiorella (Anita Zagaria). They will have nothing to do with him as he is a foreigner,
but Francis observes that the two are truly in love and does all she can to further their flowering of their relationship.
In short, she starts to think and act and live like a native as Cortona becomes her adopted homeland and Bramasolé becomes
her beloved home. Magic can happen in Tuscany, a land so beautiful that the ordinary seems almost out of place.
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