Words by Pat Eggleton

“Under the Tuscan Sun” [2003], based very loosely on a book of the same title by Frances Mayes, is a film you either love or hate. If you are expecting it to be anything like the book, you will be disappointed but, to be fair, the book, which deserves to be read in its own right as a memoir, is part-autobiography, part-guidebook to Cortona and part-cookbook and would have been difficult to transpose faithfully to film.

Mayes, like the film’s heroine, had been through a divorce when she bought a house in Italy and, also like the screen Frances, she eventually found a new love interest in her life but there the similarity ends. Screenwriter and director Audrey Wells concocts a story in which San Francisco writer Frances [Diane Lane] encouraged by her friend Patti [Sandra Oh] joins a gay tour to Tuscany and there she falls in love with a villa in need of restoration.

She becomes the owner of the villa, hires a team of Polish immigrants to restore it and develops friendships with the people around her. Slowly Frances recovers from her extreme depression and, after a tentative relationship with her married real estate agent [Raoul Bova], realises that she can love again. The film has received some cruel reviews but we say, enjoy it for what it is, delight in the stunning photography and food scenes and dream!

In the following video: the Trailer from Under the Tuscan Sun.