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Under the Tuscan Sun
(Reviewed September 11, 2003)
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Calling all brain-dead, deluded spinsters! This movie is for you!
Well, it is rather shamelessly targeted at you, anyhow. But even the most cock-deprived, frustrated, desperately needy Miss Lonelyhearts is likely to retch and run from this cynical slopbucket of sentimental swill.
Diane Lane may be beautiful, and genuinely likeable, and undeniably sexy in this tale of a divorcee who leaves San Francisco for Italy, buys a house, and starts a new life for herself. But this movie is so pandering, so contrived, so insultingly moronic that she almost succeeds in blowing all of the goodwill left over from her great acting job in last year's "Unfaithful."
"Unfaithful" was trash, admittedly. But "Under the Tuscan Sun" is garbage. There IS a difference, people.
First of all: We are expected to believe that, in the ridiculously preposterous universe of "Under the Tuscan Sun," Lane is pressured to sell her house in SF because her philandering husband holds the upper hand in a divorce case. Oh, sure. That happens all the time in California! Hubby's new squeeze likes the SF house, you see, and so Diane can either sell her half or end up paying alimony to her entirely-to-blame-for-the-breakup ex. Ha-ha, is this a screwball comedy in disguise, or what?
Then Lane is presented with a ticket to Italy by a pair of lesbian friends who have just found out "they" are pregnant. (How delightfully PC.) They were supposed to go there themselves, but now don't want to fly, so they upgraded to one first-class ticket and made it a "congrats on your divorce" gift for Ms. L.
Lane has one of those Hallmark moments in Italy when she sees a house for sale there, so she impulsively buys it with most of her savings...but there must be a perpetually in bloom money tree in the backyard, because she pays workmen to make the place into a showplace over the next year, and lives like a retiree with no visible means of support the whole time. Nice work if you can get it!
She meets various sickeningly "colorful" characters and has lots of special house-repair moments and meets a studly Italian who owns a beachside restaurant and then her pregnant lesbian friend appears on her doorstep one day and moves in and...are you buying any of this crap? Believe me, it plays even stupider and less believable on screen.
Lay the blame for all of this squarely at the feet of writer/director Audrey Wells, who (according to the press notes) apparently jettisoned everything but the title from this adaptation of the best-selling novel version of "Under the Tuscan Sun." Readers who enjoyed the story of a woman AND HER HUSBAND who bought and renovated a house in Italy should feel rather shocked and betrayed to see that the movie version is about a divorcee and a circle of ENTIRELY FICTIONAL CHARACTERS that do not appear in the print version. Can you say, "May I please have my money back, you goddamned slimy Hollywood bait-and-switch con artists?"
Also, Diane Lane never gets naked (the closest she comes is one of those "only in the movies" scenes where people get in bed and have sex while keeping their underwear on). That pretty much eliminates any reason whatsoever for any non-pussy-whipped man with even a milligram of testosterone to buy a ticket.
Avoid. Avoid. AVOID!
Back Row Grade: F
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