Rating: 
Summary: Loved it
Review: This book has been floating around bookstores for years (look for it in the "travel narratives" section), but admittedly, I didn't read it before seeing the film. For once, I'm glad I didn't. "Under the Tuscan Sun" is author/book reviewer Frances Mayes' (played to perfection by Diane Lane)own life experience; from discovering her husband's infidelity (revealed to her in a cruel, calculated fashion by an author who's book she panned)to a painful divorce (he wanted to keep their house, estimated to be worth over 600K, AND his little piece on the side was pregnant)to escaping to a tour of Tuscany (a present from her friends). On this bus tour, she notices a villa for sale, and sets her sights on buying it. Although the storyline seems pretty pale in comparison to every other movie out this season, UTTS was fabulous, and I was never bored or driven to distraction at any point. The beautiful scenery is much to take in, and should definitely be seen on the big screen. Frances (or "Francesca", as they call her) meets up with an eccentric women named Katherine (Lindsay Duncan of "Mansfield Park"), a blond 60-something woman who was discovered by Felini when she was 16. Katherine sees Frances' sad state of mind and tries to help her through the sage advice given to her by Felini. Still, there are other people's stories interwoven in this tale that make this film even more interesting. One character is a young Polish boy who is helping Francis refurbish her beloved villa. He falls in love with an Italian girl who's Father disapproves of the union, and it's up to Frances to help them come together. Frances tries to avoid romance herself, yet somehow it finds her. But I won't spoil it for you. I mainly went to this movie because my sister was in town and we wanted to see it together. I'm so very glad we did. Thoroughly enjoyable and touching- lots of funny dialogue too, which doesn't just make it a "chick flick" (even if no one gets blown up). Diane Lane is (without trying to be over the top)"enchanting", and is one of the most convincing actresses of our generation. Go see this movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Looking for ladybugs
Review: UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN, based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Frances Mayes, is one of those fantasies of escape likely to appeal to those leading lives of quiet desperation. Diane Lane plays Frances, who's just undergone a bitter divorce made more insulting by the fact that ex-hubbie buys out her share of the house using money supplied by his new woman. Frances moves into an apartment block that specializes in sheltering the recently divorced. The lawyer next door sobs a lot. Then, two of Frances's lesbian friends gift her with a ticket for a tour of Tuscany. So, off she goes, ultimately to impulsively purchase a run-down villa in the hill town of Cortona. Mayes spends the rest of the story overseeing the restoration of her new digs by a local contractor employing three expatriate Poles, and searching for a new lease on Love. My wife liked this film more than I, but admitted it's a chick flick. I'm giving it four stars chiefly because both Diane Lane and the Italian locations are gorgeous. The whole point of the film is to get the demoralized Frances to the point where she can again say, "I'm emotionally OK and ready to boogie." A disclaimer in the ending credits states that some characters were altered to enhance the dramatic action. Perhaps buffed up too much in some cases, and not enough in others. For me, the film would have been a much better story had it focused on Frances, the villa's reconstruction, and the engaging personalities of the Poles (Pawel Szajda, Valentine Pelka, and Sasa Vulicevic), and created a relationship with her helpful real estate agent, the sensitive and maturely handsome Martini (Vincent Riotta). However, the screenwriters have Frances involved in too many other subplots requiring an excess of supporting players. There's Katherine (Lindsay Duncan), a flamboyant ex-actress and Fellini protege, who's only purpose in the storyline seems to be to dance in a fountain and advise on how to find men, in this case equated with ladybugs - essentially, "lie down in the grass and let them come to you". Then there's gay pal Patti (Sandra Oh), who shows up to have a baby. And hunky Marcello (Raoul Bova), straight off the lurid cover of some bodice-ripper, who admittedly goes a long way in restoring Mayes's sexual self-esteem. (My wife thought Marcello totally necessary to the plot.) Indeed, one of the best scenes has Mayes doing a private victory dance to celebrate the fact that she's still "got it." Diane Lane's last outing (UNFAITHFUL) garnered her a well-deserved Oscar nomination. Her role in UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN is nowhere near to being as accomplished a performance. But for this viewer, who's been in love with Ms. Lane since her appearance in 1989's LONESOME DOVE as the sweetly vulnerable prostitute Lorena, it more than sufficed as an endorphin fix.
Rating:
Summary: A really fun, smart and sexy movie!
Review: This was a GREAT and FUN movie. It was so funny and touching, yet did'nt have the 'cliches'. It was well acted by Diane Lane and it looked fantastic! A great fun movie! Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Under the Tuscan Sun
Review: This was one of the most predictable, syrupy, twisted excuses for a movie I have seen in a long time. Based on unlikely premises, this movie is about a woman who gets the very raw end of a divorce (we're supposed to feel sorry for her within the first 3 minutes of the movie) and then takes a vacation (courtesy of her gay lover friends) and buys a villa in Tuscany based on a whim. Somehow she has enough lire to fix things up, enough moxie to make friends with Italians (?) and live in a small town. In case the audience doesn't "get" that men are cruel and heartless, she has yet another experience with a philandering man whom she has fallen for (but never bothered to tell him). Finally her pregnant gay friend from San Francisco (now herself jilted by the 'man' in her relationship) comes and delivers her baby in Tuscany, creating a 'family' that our protagonist always wanted in theory. Gimmie a break. This movie rates one star because the scale doesn't go lower.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best and most beautiful films ever seen!
Review: UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN is such a lovely and beautiful film. It has so much funny comedy, dry wit, and wonderful scenery that it is practically faultless. Oscar nominee DIANE LANE (Unfaithful, Perfect Storm) gives yet another great performance. This is one of the best and most beautiful films I've ever seen!
Rating: 
Summary: Every cliche Under The Tuscan Sun.
Review: Suffering a rank case of postmodern personality disorder - dead split between traditional and avant-garde mores - "Under The Tuscan Sun" seeks to embrace its main character, a divorced writer reinventing her life along with a villa in the Italian hills, and then poke fun at her, doling out equal amounts of ladybugs and Fellini. It plays a basic genre con, pretending to be a Travel Picture while its main trade is the same movie-of-the-week dramatics Lisa Hartman has been gnashing her teeth over for years. Diane Lane, in an apology for her brave, sexy performance in "Unfaithful," is Frances Mayes, jilted and unmoored on a gay tour of Italy (set up by her gay friend, played by Sandra Oh) while writing esteemed lines on postcards such as "ding, dang, dong, the bell rang" and stumbling upon a house and garden ripe for remodeling, and her entire bank account. Writer/director Audrey Wells doesn't particularly consider this villa with her camera; we get glimpses of rooms, a concept of the garden, but Lane never presented in anything but regal close-up. There are obligatory, Remember-It's-Tuscany helicopter shots, but the movie's two most impressive visuals - a sunset on the beach and Florence at dawn - are special f/x, blue screen manipulations. Shameless. But Wells isn't out for an American version of "Enchanted April." She is, however, offering the full tour of women's issues: divorce (in her book by the same name, Mayes refurbishes the villa with her husband), pregnancy, forbidden young love, sex, kind married men, swarthy younger men, silent older men who leave flowers at alters for no apparent reason, and finally, famous movie directors, say Federico Fellini, who apparently thought a great deal of all things child - enthusiasm, innocence, naivete, stupidity. Fellini is dead, but his wisdom is channeled through a goofy blonde bombshell who poses nude for a painting one afternoon while drinking tea with nuns the next morning. There are dreams about white dresses, mewling kitties (did Wells mistake Fellini for Luis Bunuel?) flag-tossing expeditions, days in the olive fields, thunderstorms, snakes, signs from God via pigeons and a motorcycle ride through a seaside resort. The motorcycle ride, featuring Lane done up to the nines, is a particularly odd scene, considering the joke laid at Frances' feet by the end of that ride. But "Under The Tuscan Sun" is full of such contrasts, vesting in Frances' want to have and find love, then exposing the quest as fraud, as if to be a grind of feminist theory Frances must survive before passing out the other side and meeting a servile, unworthy guy in the movie's final five minutes - literally - as if that God of thunderstorms and ladybugs sent him through Tuscany as reward. Lane is appealing and gorgeous but she mugs as badly as Meg Ryan on Theatre Sunday; her face pops and seethes and scowls and explodes in happiness and, quite often, settles on a bizarre, quizzical frown unbecoming of a woman in her late thirties, who should have figured a few things out by now. Frances is written as vulnerable, and Lane hits that mark with an obviousness that's meant to be funny; at times it works, at others Lane just shambles around. Yes, she's capable enough of opening and carrying a movie, if that was the point, but Lane need not play a half-witted fourth fiddle in Julia Roberts country just to avoid the tagalong role in Keanu Reeves sports films. For Wells, who had wrote "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" and "Guinevere," the failure is not surprising: Frankly, she's skilled in relationship territory, hapless otherwise. "Under The Tuscan Sun" mines the same ridiculous "in a foreign land, everyone's a kook!" material beaten to pulp - in fact, Europeans are not half as juiced up and loud as Americans - while teaching its lesson on What Women Should Want. Bizarre, right-angled stuff like recreating the fountain scene from Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" speaks to Wells' arrogance and true aim - only a small portion of the audience, and hardly anyone under forty, will have the foggiest idea what that scene is, or was, about. Whether it was a pander to the arthouse crowd or a tack at smartening up the target audience, it's an ugly bit of filmmaking in a picture full of nose-cutting and face-spiting.
Rating:
Summary: Very funny and very sexy! Great entertainment! 5 stars!
Review: I thought this movie would be OK but I have to admit it... it was excellent. The film is very sexy and very funny with sharp, witty dialog and great acting by the beautiful Diane Lane. This is a wonderful comedy that is an excellent watch. Great entertainment!
Rating:
Summary: Funny, uplifting, inspiring, beautiful - a GREAT movie!
Review: Under The Tuscan Sun is one of those special films that comes along once in a while. It is funny, uplifting, inspiring, beautiful and above all entertaining. This is one of the most enjoyable films I've seen for ages and the acting by Diane Lane and the lovely scenery make it a modern-day classic! 10 stars!
Rating:
Summary: Why can't all movies be this BEAUTIFUL!
Review: Why can't all movies be as involving, entertaining and enjoyable as this one. The acting is fantastic and the scenery is superb, but it is the heartfelt and human story that pulls you in and doesn't let go. Beautiful!
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful, entertaining, well-made and well-acted movie
Review: A superb film. "Tuscan Sun" is a very well-made film and it is very well-acted by the brilliant Diane Lane who will no doubt find herself winning awards for this performance. It was touching, funny, moving, romantic, sexy and enjoyable. A very beautiful and entertaining movie! 5 stars for being pretty much THE PERFECT COMEDY! Highly recommended!
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