Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Directed by Audrey Wells
Frances Mayes, a 35-year-old professor and writer from San Francisco, decides to take a tour of Tuscany following a difficult divorce. After impulsively buying a run-down villa in the Italian countryside, she begins to piece her life back together in unexpected ways.
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This is not Tennessee Williams' "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" or Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" (although one of the most famous scenes from that film is restaged here).
Wells assumes the audience’s ignorance of all things Italian, and as such any scene with Lindsay Duncan’s Katherine (an American with delusions of Anita Ekberg) engaging La Dolce Vita or Nights of Cabiria feels more condescending than helpful.
But there's also Lindsay Duncan as Katherine, an eccentric 50-ish Englishwoman who has, unluckily for the locals, transplanted herself to Italy, where she swans about in apish imitation of Anita Ekberg in "La Dolce Vita."
This culminates in a well-done homage to the Trevi Fountain scene from Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" that is striking.
The early part of the film is like a slicker version of Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman (1978).
Consider the next best thing: a jaunt to your local video store, where you can pick up the diametrically opposed but concurrently released travelogues Under the Tuscan Sun and Death in Venice.
By herself, she bravely faces an array of contractors (many of whom look like Robin Williams in his "Moscow on the Hudson" period), finds new friends and hopes to love again.
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…director Audrey Wells ( Disney's The Kid , George of the Jungle ) from Frances Mayes memoir, reminded me, surprisingly, of Truly Madly Deeply -- it's not so devastating as Anthony Minghella's ghost story, of course, but it follows a similar trail from loss to recovery to redemption, and exudes a similar exhilaration about the rediscovery of life along the way.
Of course, that film became a "cult movie" (it was a masterpiece, to be sure, but one that only six people wound up seeing) while the other script, "Splash", became an enormous hit and made a star out of Daryl Hannah.
And so Under the Tuscan Sun becomes a female Field of Dreams (1989): If you restore it, they will come.
Wells assumes the audience’s ignorance of all things Italian, and as such any scene with Lindsay Duncan’s Katherine (an American with delusions of Anita Ekberg) engaging La Dolce Vita or Nights of Cabiria feels more condescending than helpful.
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Part Shirley Valentine, part Changing Rooms and part Wish You Were Here, Under the Tuscan Sun is lovely to look at and has good performances, but is let down by a pedestrian script.
Wells, who directed "Guinevere," seems almost as entranced by the scenery as Frances.
Because Wells, who previously wrote the infinitely smarter films "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" and "Guinevere", was forced to pretty much invent the story of the film, it probably shouldnt come as a surprise to discover that it feels like a lot of elements from other movies jammed together haphazardly.
As Frances, a San Francisco writer whose husband leaves her but keeps her house, Lane is similarly unafraid to go puffy-eyed and red-nosed with sadness, though thatâs as humanly messy as writer-director Audrey Wells (Guinevere, The Kid) cares to get, with both Lane and her film.
Given the slight premise, writer/director Audrey Wells (Guinevere) must rely on Lane and supporting cast members Raoul Bova and Sandra Oh, along with the natural beauty of the Tuscan countryside, to make an impact.
Screenwriter and director Audrey Wells ("Guinevere") first has to get her there (unwillingly of course) and then, once she's there, get her to hook up with a younger man who will promptly bed her then dump her just as rapidly.
She wrote the endearing Janeane Garafolo/Uma Thurman comedy "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" and her directorial debut "Guinevere" was a striking story about a young artist (Sarah Polley) who bewitches a much older mentor (Stephen Rea) and must confront the challenge of a May-December romance.