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Summary: Who said movies had to be realistic?
Review: Come on now, we don't want to watch normal, everyday lives in movies because that would just be boring. This movie showed more than that and had a charming plot, beautiful scenery, & showed a fascinating culture. That is what makes movies good, not how believable it is!
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Summary: A Woman's Film With a Message
Review: With women occupying an ever increasing role in the workplace, as well as raising children on their own following divorces, Hollywood has turned away from the old pattern of all too often showcasing beautiful women as ornaments from handsome hunks, in short sex symbols without much to do beyond making their male co-stars happy.Fortunately the trend has changed and stars like Diane Lane have plenty of meat and bones in their roles. Such is the case in Under the Tuscan Sun. The story begins with San Francisco writer and book reviewer Lane reeling under the tragedy of divorce. Lane is provided with a free tour to Tuscany by a lesbian friend who bypasses the trip she purchased to give birth via in vitro fertilization. Lane bolts the gay tour in beautiful Tuscany, where she experiences an epiphany. She becomes enchanted and eventually buys an old house, with a reclamation project following, in the course of which she gets acquainted with the people and the area. Eventually Lane's lesbian friend turns up in Tuscany with a new baby after her gay relationship ends. In addition to this adjustment, Lane finds herself awakening in the sexual realm. An experience with a handsome young man from the area prompts her to see herself as never before. Lane's character arc in the film is significant as she sees herself in her new setting as never before. The relationship with the handsome young local has a strong bearing in bringing her out and creating a more developed woman. By the film's end she has enhanced her understanding of life and become more mature. She is then able to face life in a new way, having thrown off the shackles of the past.
Rating: 
Summary: Last time I let the Blockbuster guy recommend a movie....
Review: What a waste of two hours! As a romantic comedy, it falls short on both romance and comdey. As a movie trying to give over a lesson, it is trite, overdone, and poorly performed. The writing is unimpressive, the story is dull and far fetched, and many details either make no sense or detract from the overall plot. What was the point? They seemed to have forgotten to find one.
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Summary: Lane Carries this Would Be Dud Like Magic
Review: I loved Keaton in "Something's Gotta Give," but I truly feel that Lane was gypped this year at the Golden Globes. Although not the superior film, "Under the Tuscan Sun" turns out to be a "Golden" ray of sunshine, and 99% is because of Lane. She bares the entire weight of this film on her back and never flounders even once; a truly stunning performance (and oh the beauty that she is!) This is a must see not only for Lane, but also for the spectacular scenery that will have you running for your travel agent.
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Summary: UPLIFTING AND REAL...
Review: Wassup who said that this movie was boring, stupid, this movie is great and has a lot of material that is real and shows how can you get up after a very berrie hurtful relationship. This lady of course is betrayed by her husbandm, she wnet for vaction in Italy, was capture by the beauty of Toscana and then she stays there finds love, lost it, and then find it again with an average american guy, so there you have it, a great movie with a great message, and by noway boring!, this is good.
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Summary: A romantic trip to Italy....I wanna go to Tuscany!
Review: This film was a pleasant surprise. I figured there would be plenty of beautiful landscape (which there was) and I figured I would enjoy a nice romantic story. As it turns out, the story is a story of love, romantic love included of course, but also about the love of friends and family. The story centers around Frances, who after a bitter divorce, ends up in Italy and becomes drawn to an Italian villa that is a bit of a fixer-upper. On a whim, she buys the place and with a motley crew of workers, begins to restore the home. Slowly she begins to really live again, meeting kind neighbors and villagers and eventually finding romance. Diane Lane does a great job as Frances and the supporting cast does well with their roles too. I definitely plan to buy this on dvd.
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Summary: An American in Italy
Review: In order to appreciate this movie, you must understand that it is not a romantic comedy, no matter how it is advertised. Yes, there is romance and there is comedy, but that is REALLY not the focus of the film. In fact, viewers may be fooled when male characters are introduced--they're not all potential love interests, like you'd expect in other movies. Life is not that simple! It is really the story of a woman who proves to herself that she can make it on her own, without a man, anywhere and anytime. On a trip to Italy, trying to take her mind off her recent divorce, she spontaneously buys an Italian villa...one which needs a lot of work and repairs...and settles herself in this country. She slowly makes it her home, while making friends in a foreign land and learning a new culture. I really enjoyed this movie for the scenes of Italy and its faithful presentation of Italian culture (not just the stereotypical view of Italians you get in American T.V. shows and movies). Besides the Italian people, there are Italian cuisine, beautiful villas, tours of the countryside, and people of other nationalities. I don't know how anyone can watch this film without seriously considering hopping on a plane and moving to Italy permanently.
Rating:
Summary: Loved and Beloved by All
Review: What starts out as an Italian "Money Pit" with all the attendant broken pipes, crumbling walls and incompetent handymen makes a turn for the better about a third of the way through: a more emotionally centered and revealing movie,"Under the Tuscan Sun."
The luminescent Diane Lane stars as Frances, an intelligent, loving women with close and committed friends who finds herself in a situation that many people do: with a mate who has fallen out of love, wants a divorce as well as possession of a much loved and painstakingly renovated house, this one in San Francisco. After the divorce Frances goes to Tuscany on a lark, falls in love with a villa there, buys it and proceeds to renovate it. The villa then is the physical manifestation of the shedding of her old life and marriage and the hope for the renovation and rehabilitation of her love life as well as her life in general.
That she probably places too much faith in the physical to solve the emotional does not detract at all from the guts and hope that it takes to do so. And Lane is so psychically centered and open as Frances that you cannot help but be moved by her situation.
There are some silly plot lines and performances that I wish weren't, but with a central performance as attractive and genuinely loving and feminine as Lane's, "Under The Tuscan Sun" is as warm and inviting as bread just out of the oven.
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Summary: Nice !
Review: As a rule, I never enjoy Hollywood films based on best-selling memoirs. But there are endless surprises here -- it is based on life, after all. Which keeps it real, and makes it ring true, and makes you relax, and sit back, while someone tells you about a slice of her life. Well done! It makes for a thoroughly enjoyable evening. And the structure of the landscape and towns is beautiful beyond belief. When will people begin to build this way again?
Rating:
Summary: Horrid Chick Flick
Review: Being a male I was never much of a fan of the chick flick, however I usually just accept that women like these movies for the same reasons that men like horror-gore movies (not to essentialize but not many women appreciate this genre). However after seeing this movie I felt compelled to write a reveiw.
Basically the plot is somewhat predictable and horribly cliche; enough people ran through it already so I do not beleive that it is my duty. However the most predictable parts of this movie are when she goes to the Italian lovers house and finds out that he already has a woman under his roof. (Perhaps she should have rode back with the officer and then made this movie at least interesting).
It is from the aformentioned point that the movie goes seriously downhill. The author found it neccessarey to give this movie a happy ending and amazingly one fell from the sky, with the American author appearing out of nowhere and the deadfully cheesy out of class relationship with the Polish kid and the Italian girl.
Overall I recommend this movie if you can forgive movie cliches and random happy endings; well all of that and of course bad acting and fourth grade directing.
The scenery was however beatiful, but what a waste.
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