alikacandon
I love so many types of movies... and this is one of my all time favorites! Never really knew or cared about Diane Lane until I saw this wonderful movie. I also gained a lot of sentiment for Sandra Oh after watching this film. Anyone who loves to travel to foreign destinations, in this case Italy, and for anyone who is a believer in fate, being in the right place at the right time and divine intervention will absolutely love "Under The Tuscan Sun." This movie is so uplifting, very inspirational and fully encouraging for the person who may be facing major life struggles, feeling displaced in life and in need of an extraordinary life change! Highly recommended... I guarantee you will watch this movie more than once!
bkoganbing
In many ways Under The Tuscan Sun seems to be a kinder and gentler version of The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone. Both deal with female protagonists who have lost their husbands and seemingly a reason for existence as both had much maybe too much invested in their marriages.Unlike Vivien Leigh's film where her husband dies leaving her a wealthy widow who can now indulge in hedonism, Diane Lane was a successful author who supported her husband who was struggling as a writer and she catches him with another woman. He demands and gets the alimony.So disgusted is she that she takes off for Italy on a gay tour at the behest of her lesbian friend Margaret Oh who gives up her and her partner's ticket for one first class for Lane because she badly needs R&R. That's a friend, no one ever did that for me. The theory being that on a gay tour she can think without being hit on as a ready to rebound divorcée.Passing through Tuscany she spots a villa being sold dirt cheap by American prices and impulsively buys it. After that comes a few heartaches, but gradually Lane's back in the swing of things Italian style as it were.I did love the nicely photographed scenes of Italy showing the daily life there. Lane really dominates the film and though she's sadder and wiser she's not caught up in a meaningless and hedonistic existence as Vivien Leigh was. And Margaret Oh has a lot of wisdom in her and she will be one you remember.For sadder and wiser romantics Under The Tuscan Sun is cheerfully recommended.
Leftbanker
Why bother to visit Italy when you can just bring a bunch of tired clichés to life? They even managed to throw in some clichés about homosexuals just in case anyone needed a little extra patronizing. I have never been able to make it all the way through this disaster of a movie no matter how hard I tried. It's a mess on every level and even the scenery of Tuscany isn't enough to save it.I've always said that bad acting is the result of terrible directing and this film is a clinic of bad directing and terrible acting. How many stupid muggings can we watch of the protagonist expressing sadness, joy, pleasure, fear, surprise, disgust, or whatever? It's the director's responsibility to get what he or she wants and to instruct the actors. The best thing is to cut out all of the stupid and Completely obvious emotions and convey these things through dialogue whenever possible.The director lets her people run amuck in this thing. The English woman who appears like a phantom seems to be a female Liberace, and I don't mean that in a good way. She is simply another dumb stereotype of an eccentric, gentry-class denizen. Her lesbian friend is simply annoying. The three workers are paper-thin and wholely predictable at every turn.Ugh, I hated almost every scene in the film. She over-acts at almost every turn of the camera. Why did the director frame her face in so much of the film? Turn the sound off and watch this and I guarantee you will laugh yourself sick at the bad acting clinic she seems to be giving.The love angle in the movie was corny at best and embarrassing at worst and played like a teenage girl's rendering of how it should be. And finally she meets Joe Whitebread and lives happily ever after. Just completely horrible all along the way.
tieman64
Based on a novel by Frances Mayes, "Under The Tuscan Sun" stars the always beautiful Diane Lane as a writer who moves to Italy following a divorce. Once there, she buys a house, mingles with various locals and learns to appreciate life's simple virtues.Whilst clichéd and condescending, "Sun" nevertheless has one interesting angle. Here Lane goes in search of various specific fantasies; she hopes to find a new home, family, and photogenic Italian lover. When these fantasies are thwarted, Lane begins to live vicariously through the romance of a young couple, both of whom are trapped in their own little Romeo and Juliet subplot. This duo represents, for Lane, nothing less than "hope"; the possibility that dreams do come true. Lane's dreams, of course, are eventually fulfilled; shes meets a new lover. The message? Be spontaneous, "grow in all directions", ignore what you crave, and when the time is right, what you desire will spontaneously appear anyway. This message contradicts the film's other subplot, in which the allures of Italy are portrayed as a false image bred by the scions of cinema. Or perhaps not. Lane's received everything she dreamt of, and yet there remains a mysterious garden snake hidden in her home.7/10 – Worth one viewing. See Antonioni's "Beyond the Clouds", "Big Night" and "Before Sunrise".
AD
