Rating: 
Summary: A warm, easy to enjoy tale of remaking one's life
Review: In a way, I liked this movie a lot more than perhaps I ought. For one thing, I am a guy, and this is very definitely a chick flick (hint for the guys: a great movie to take her on a date). It is also a tad predictable, though it is not without a few surprises. And at times it feels more like a succession of postcards than a film, so perfect does Tuscany look throughout the picture.So why did I enjoy it so much? First, because of the very wonderful performance of Diane Lane as Frances Mayes, the real life author of the book upon which this film is based (and which I must confess I have not read). In my mind, Lane has always been way, way underutilized by Hollywood. She has always shown herself to be an actress of the highest caliber, but for some reason she has not always been granted the kinds of roles that she ought to have received. She is onscreen in this film for very nearly the entire length, and the film is all the better for that. She is also quite beautiful in a seemingly accessible way, and I really loved watching her marvelously expressive face throughout the film. Although the film really does, as I mentioned above, seem sometimes like a succession of postcards or the pictures of a Tuscan calendar, there is no question that the film is surreally beautiful. The town of Cartona looks so exquisite that one is immediately seized with dreams of winning the lottery and moving therewith. It is quite easy to understand why anyone would love to live in such a marvelous place. And the brief scenes in Positano make it look like a perhaps even more beautiful spot than Cartona. There is no question: this is a very gorgeous movie to look at, though perhaps a tad too perfect. One begins to wonder if there were imperfections in the region that the camera chose to ignore. But no matter; this is a fantasy, and the beauty was quite appropriate to the mood of the film. The villa that she purchases more or less becomes one of the major characters in the film. It is lovely thing, a bit dilapidated at the beginning, but by the end of the film it is transformed to something cared for and caring in return. The prospect from the villa is breathtaking, with the gently rolling hills filling most of the view, with mountains in the distant. Her bedroom is definitely a room with a view. This is all played to great advantage in the remarkable scene were a lightening storm seems to ravage the area, with a lightening bolt striking a washing machine in her front yard, and with an owl flying into her bedroom to escape the chaos outside. Finally, I enjoyed the collection of friends--for such they became in the end--in Tuscany. Although Frances goes there as a stranger, by the end of the film she possesses a large and wide-ranging group of friends. One comes to like and know them all, and feel some of the affection for them that Frances feels. This is not one of the great films one is likely to see this year or any other, but it is a warm, likable, beautiful film, and it is hard to imagine many not giving in to its charms.
Rating: 
Summary: Italian-American Fairy Tale set in the 21 st Century?
Review: I should have read the reviews before wasting $10 bucks at BB for this used dvd. I bought it for my wife. She wanted to see it but as I write this review I am watching it with her and we both think this movie is a fairy tale. Please, please...if this movie had any sense of reality I would be the first one to move to Italy. Enough! Read what others have said before me for more specific. I WANT MY MONEY BACK!
Rating:
Summary: Such lovely scenery - such an awful film!
Review: This is a really bad film. Okay, so it has nothing to do with the book except that it shares a title - that I could live with. But the story is hopelessly cobbled together and totally unbelievable. Surely this was a first draft of the script that they accidentally filmed? The main character is played by the pretty Diane Lane, but looks alone cannot salvage this dreadful character. She cries, she pouts, she is unbearably naive and, let's just say it, she is an idiot. The storyline is full of cliches. And where there are not cliches, there are gaping plot holes: why does her far-too-attractive-to-be-true Italian boyfriend drive a sports car when his family run a modest cafe on the beach that is supposed to support all of them? And just how does she manage to up and move to Italy without even having to fill in an immigration form? And if she was so broke that she had to move out of her mansion in San Francisco into a run-down fleabag hotel, just how the hell can she afford to suddenly buy and renovate a house in Italy, as well as living there for months with no visible means of income? The worst part of a spectacularly awful script is the love interest suddenly written in at the very last minute to tie everything up neatly - that really is bad writing of such magnitude that it deserves a special Oscar. Still, if you turn the sound off, you can enjoy genuinely beautiful photography of Italy.
Rating: 
Summary: Read the book, skip the movie
Review: I read "Under the Tuscan Sun" over a year ago, and though it seemed hard to get into in the beginning, I suddenly found myself wrapped into the saga of the "money pit" house. The descriptions of the local people, the food, and the house were enchanting. When I heard that a film was being made of the book, I admit that I was somewhat puzzled as to how the journal-style writing would come across on the big screen. I'm not a big "movie theatre" goer, but when I heard that the film with the book's title was coming out on DVD I had to satisfy my curiosity. I've just completed watching the movie, and as somewhat expected, I am thoroughly disappointed. Although the Italian scenery is sublime, the storyline is too different from the book. The characters (though completely understandable in the book) do not seem connected to one another at all. I had problems following why characters, and their ecentricities, were introduced and I already knew the story! Diane Lane is beautiful and the scenery is gorgeous, but in the end I didn't "care" about any of the characters or the outcome. It just seemed to run out of steam (or water)...or maybe it was the absence of the adorable Italian from Positano :) In any case, take the time to read the book instead.
Rating:
Summary: Tuscany steals the show
Review: I think ANY movie would benefit from being set and shot in Tuscany Italy. This one did, without the beautiful backdrop - I don't think I would have watched the whole thing. A patchwork story-line, left me with the feeling that it had a lot of interesting bits and pieces BUT it appeared that they were put together for no apparent reason.
It just wasn't believable.
Maybe rent it
Rating:
Summary: Loved the movie!
Review: Maybe there IS a lot wrong with the movie, but, for me, I thoroughly enjoyed it!!!! I "thought" it was going to be a chick flick before I saw it but was really surprised. Totally loved it!
Give it a chance!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Great movie!
Review: Under the Tuscan Sun was such an enjoyable movie.
Diane Lane is just great in the starring role.
Rating: 
Summary: I Have a High Tolerance but............
Review: I am a guy who actually enjoys nauseating "chick flicks" but, this was too much even for me. I have actually tolerated every Meg Ryan romantic comedy and other movies of that genre but this ...!!!!! The movie slips in some of the Hollywood social values that have disturbed many Americans in the so called "red states." Diane Lane stars as a recently divorced woman who is coming to terms with her life. She has two close friends, a lesbian couple and, of course in grand Hollywood style, they are seeking to become parents. This is an issue that is debated in this country, but, predictably enough in this movie, it is treated matter of factly as though this is the norm (but then again, the norm is whatever the Hollywood elite says it is).
Anyway, this couple gets their newly divorced friend to take a trip to Italy on a tour for gay people. She goes and falls in love with a house in Tuscany which needs tons of work. She bolts from the tour and somehow has enough money to purchase this house and get it fixed up. Her ensuing romantic dilemnas are too much even for even my high tolerance for sickening schmaltz. Because of the delightful escapism of the beautiful settings of Tuscany, I will grudgingly give this movie three stars.
Rating:
Summary: So much going for it...why did it turn out so bad?
Review: Mayes' novel as "inspiration" and Tuscany and Diane Lane...well, I would have thought the final product would have been at least watchable. The director did manage to wring out the worst performace of Diane Lane's career to date. Sandra Oh is just terrible. (Compare her performance in Sideways and you see what a difference a good director can make.) This is a fantasy chick flick, that is really an insult even to this escapist genre. Even if I suspend belief about the economics (where was the money coming from to both buy and renovate the house when she basically walked away from the marriage and its tangible assets...she didn't get it from the teaching salary of someone at San Francisco State University where Mayes did teach before she wrote this book) the plot is trite and the characters are a hodge podge of stock characters meant to add color. This did to Tuscany what Peter Mayle did to Provence...made the locals look like simpletons and the English and American intruders as saviors to the local economy.
Rating:
Summary: a sassy little movie
Review: This movie was fabulous! I love that not all of the good things in the movie happen to the main character. This movie illustrates the importance of one's relationships. Nothing matters if you dont have friends and family to share it with.
To the person that wrote the terrible review. Perhaps you should get your facts right the next time you write a review. The construction workers were POLISH not italien!!! They even named her villa Polonia.
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