Under the Tuscan Sun- movie reviews

Yesterday I told you about my personal feelings towards “Under the Tuscan Sun”. Today I would like to compare and contrast two reviews on the movie.

The first one I would like to examine was written by San Francisco Chronicle writer Mick LaSalle. He praises the beautiful pictures of Italy and especially of charming Diane Lane. In his opinion she not only is strikingly beautiful, but also a great actress. Due to some changes to the original book, the movie is not only about the wonderful Tuscan landscape, but even more about the search of love. Though admitting that the movie sometimes seems to use too many clichés and from time to time even seems to be the Italian version of “Sex and the City” LaSalle seems to like it, overall.

The second review by Elvis Mitchell “Restoring a Villa While Repairing the Heart” was published in the New York Times. To him, the movie is “eminently superficial” and predictable as a movie can be. Basically, the movie is about the desperate protagonist Frances, who doesn’t find happiness, if it wasn’t for the abrupt end where suddenly her current partner Ed appears.

To sum up, both reviewers seemed to be stunned by the Diane Lane’s facial expressions. Whereas the one mostly liked the romantic story, the other one was more critical and claimed the whole story is superficial. The homepage “Rotten Tomatoes” sums up all the reviews giving it 62% from 100%. That certainly is not bad, however, not staggering, too. So if you are into romantic movies and love Italy the movie might be worth watching. However, don’t expect too much.

Under the Tuscan Sun- the movie

I started the long weekend with watching the movie adaptation of Frances Mayes’ “Under the Tuscan Sun”. Well, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t too optimistic, since I wasn’t quite sure if a movie based on the renovation of a holiday house in Italy could possibly be interesting. My doubts proved to be well-founded.

After Frances Mayes, an American writer in her thirtysomethings, learns that her husband is unfaithful, she feels absolutely devastated. The divorce is a hard and expensive process and Frances seems to be at the end of her rope. That’s why her worried friends (a lesbian couple, by the way) send her to a trip to Italy. There she immediately falls in love with the wonderful house called Bramasole and buys it right away. With the help of three Polish workers she renovates the old house and even manages to find a new love, the Italian Marcello. When the pregnant Patti, one of her friends who made her go to Italy, arrives to stay a little everything seems to be perfect. Unluckily, once again love disappoints her when she finds out that Marcello, too, is unfaithful. Simultaneously, one of the Polish workers, who by this time are close friends of Frances, falls in love with a young Italian girl. Frances helps them to convince the girl's parents to allow them to marry and at this wedding she gets to know her future partner Ed, which is the happy end.

Everyone who has read the book might wonder, where the lesbian couple comes from, why Frances seems to live in Italy permanently and why poor Ed appears so late? Maybe a happy couple who is looking for a holiday residence in Italy isn’t too thrilling for the audience. However, that leads me to the question why someone would make a film of that very book, if the content doesn’t seem to be interesting enough for a movie version. Also, now I understand Pam Mandel’s comment, that she wonders how Frances financed her living in Italy. I mean in the book it’s clear that she works most time of the year, but in the movie she seems to be unemployed.

So although I really liked Diane Lane’s acting, the movie wasn’t too captivating. The book, as usually, is much better!

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

I guess all of you know that movie, so I decided that -instead of a summary- I'll answer some questions from esl-notes. That's an interesting site which tries to support the learning progress by offering vocabulary, a summary and discussion questions for several DVDs. Though the vocab isn't too challenging, the questions are interesting to think about.

This movie seems to be about Greek-American culture; In fact, is it really about all kinds of ethnic Americans? How so?
The story about Toula and Ian is certainly a special one, though it’s overdrawn to some extent to make it a comedy. The story is neither complicated nor intellectually demanding, but still, I believe that the movie reveals some basic truths about the contact between any cultures.

It shows problems that might arise when different cultures meet, but also how those problems can be solved by trying to understand the other culture. The keyword in cross-cultural experiences is undoubtedly tolerance. One doesn’t have to adopt all the customs of a culture, but one should know a thing or two about them.

If you were Ian, would you have agreed to join another church in order to marry Toula?
Being not too religious myself, I am not keen on joining any church. Admittedly, I am Roman-Catholic on paper, but not because I decided to be, but because my parents baptized me when I was too young to raise objection.

However, if my boyfriend was really religious and it was so important to him or his family that we married in a church, why not do them the favour? As long as they don’t expect me to practise their religion I’m fine with that. Above all, I should somehow be able to relate to the religion, since I’m not willing to join some sect or a Church I don’t understand.

Has the United States largely succeeded in creating a great “melting pot” (in which people from all cultures have blended together), or is it more like a “salad bowl” (in which people from different cultures stick to their own groups)?
Personally, I think Americans aren’t the product of a melting pot culture anymore. In former days, people tried more eagerly to adapt to the new culture. That’s because they had turned their back on their old home countries and the values there.

Nowadays, however, American culture is an own culture just like British, Greek, Russian etc. As a result it’s criticized and praised just like any other culture. The ones who love the American culture will try to adopt American behaviour and values, whereas there are also people who prefer sticking to their own culture.

Accordingly, America is both a melting pot (for those who love American culture) and a salad bowl (for the ones who like America, but prefer to stick to their own culture).

Did you like this movie? Why or why not?
I really love that movie. I’ve already watched it three times and I dare to predict that it wasn’t the last time. It’s hilarious, especially the granny, who always runs about cursing out the Turks. (Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against Turks, but still, the granny always cracks me up!)