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!