Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)

Directed by Audrey Wells. Starring Diane Lane, Vincent Riotta, Raoul Bova, Lindsay Duncan, Sandra Oh, Pawel Szajda, Valentine Pelka, Sasa Vulicevic, Giulia Steigerwalt, David Sutcliffe. [PG-13]

A newly-divorced writer (Lane) is touring Tuscany on vacation to get her head straight and winds up impulsively buying a villa. From there, she fixes it up with the help of Polish immigrants, befriends a couple of “old souls” in realtor Riotta and aging English actress Duncan, plays matchmaker to a pair of lustful youths, and has a fling with local smoothie Bova. An artificial, cliché-addled fantasy, as implausible as it is sappy, held together solely by two key ingredients: 1) the “scenery porn” of so many splendid Italian locales and vistas, and 2) Lane’s effortless magnetism and natural beauty (she even recovers quickly from each of the occasional bald-faced contrivances and embarrassments the script hands her, like when she stumbles down a hill like a hysterical fool, muddied and undignified). Those two elements aren’t enough to recommend the movie, however, because it evokes so little real feeling, and I found it too difficult to care about her love life, her career, her fixation on a lonely man with flowers, the fate of her neighbors and the workers, or anything else beyond the ample charms of the protagonist and the trappings. Adapted by director Wells from Frances Mayes’ bestselling memoir. Jeffrey Tambor and Kate Walsh have minor roles.

48/100