Walter Santi points out to me that they’ve changed just about everything in adapting Frances Mayes’ best-selling travel memoirs about moving to northern Italy and renovating a rundown villa.

The strength of her books is her charming and descriptive writing style, as she revels in the beautiful landscapes, colorful characters, delicious food, and languid pace of Tuscany life.

However pretty much anything distinctive about Mayes’ books has been rubbed out in favor of boilerplate chick-flick cliches.

I'm going to see "Under the Tuscan Sun" merely to "immerse" myself in the Italian ambiance, and hope the plot and characters, don't get too much in the way. :)

Some reviews follow:
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UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN: At Home in Italy

The Hollywood Reporter
By Sheri Linden

Bottom line: Diane Lane limns a luminous, penetrating portrait of a woman rebuilding her life.

Adapting "Under the Tuscan Sun," writer-director Audrey Wells spices up Frances Mayes' best-selling memoir in a way that honors the soul of the piece while creating memorable big-screen dynamics. The book's poetic prose celebrates the romance of self-discovery through immersion in a foreign place -- specifically, the hilly sun-drenched region of Italy and the tumbledown, 300-year-old villa called Bramasole in the Tuscan town of Cortona...

..Lane's full-blooded portrait of an intelligent, sensuous woman will have particular resonance for female audiences. "Sun" will shine at the boxoffice

Frances is surrounded by vivid characters, some invented for the screen, some expanded upon from the book...

Frances' immediate family consists of her comical contractor, Nino (Massimo Sarchielli), and his "team of experts" -- three Polish workers ....

[RAA Note: Why? Why? Why? I love Polish sausage, but with NOT with my Pasta]

Shooting in Italy, DP Geoffrey Simpson captures the region's warm light through all the seasons and, more impressive, depicts the transformation from Frances' initial, tourist's-eye view to the outlook of someone at home....
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ALLURE OF ITALY CAPTURED BY "UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN: At Home in Italy"

Sarah Ann Long
Past President
American Library Association
The Daily Herald
October 8, 2002

Tuscany could be the emblem and synthesis of Italy. It has everything-mountains, sea, colors, scents, flavors, the sun and Florence.

Author Frances Mayes has brought Tuscany to prominence for many of us with her trio of books, "Under the Tuscan Sun," "Bella Tuscany," and "In Tuscany." The books are magical in their ability to distill the essence of Tuscany for the reader. Perhaps it's because Frances Mayes was a poet before she wrote travel books. Perhaps it's the subject matter.

Of Tuscany, Frances Mayes has said, "It's the warmth of the people, the human scale of the towns, the robust food. Italians know how to live. They have more fun than the rest of us."

Frances Mayes and her husband were teachers in San Francisco, and for years they had been vacationing in Tuscany. In l985 they rented a farmhouse and on the first night Mayes noticed a tumbled down old farmhouse in the distance. She said to her husband, "Wouldn't it be fun to get a farmhouse here?" They spent several more summers in various rented farmhouses and then in 1990 bought one of their own.

The three books are all about the adventure of rehabbing a farmhouse, exploring the countryside, noticing and appreciating the Italian approach to life, and especially about food. Reading these books makes you want to run out to the market and buy buffalo mozzarella and press your own olives. You almost taste these books as you read them....
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UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN: At Home in Italy

Reviews-Colossus.Net
A Film Review by James Berardinelli

..This is a beautifully shot motion picture, and there's no doubt that the lush scenery upstages the actors. The real star of Under the Tuscan Sun isn't Diane Lane, but the Italian countryside, with its rich, varied hues, as filtered through the lenses of cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson. So, if you're looking for pretty, postcard-like settings, this movie offers plenty of them...

I am of the firm opinion that the term "chick flick" (which manifestly applies to this film) should not automatically disqualify men from enjoying the production...
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'UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN: At Home in Italy'
By Mark Caro
Chicago Tribune Movie Writer

Fans of Frances Mayes' best-selling memoir "Under the Tuscan Sun" may be surprised to learn that the movie version is about a female professor who divorces her philandering husband, sinks into a depression, accepts her lesbian pals' gift of a gay tour of Italy, buys herself a country home and spends more time looking for love than harvesting olives...

..The appeal is so visceral, it's no wonder that throngs of readers have ventured to Tuscany with the book (or its follow-up, "Bella Tuscany") tucked into their carry-on baggage...

..Producer/Director Wells, has fashioned "Under the Tuscan Sun" as a chick flick....

The movie is engineered so a woman will think: "Yes, this is my fantasy of how to rebound from a shattered relationship." A guy in the audience is more likely to respond: "Diane Lane can't find a guy? Hel-lo, Diane! Here I am!"

.. While the movie comes by its charm professionally; it's more Olive Garden than friendly family trattoria....

(There are the required ) lovably quirky Italians, including a grandmother carrying on an e-mail romance.

Wells tries to defuse the cliches by playing with them... When Marcello tells Frances, "You have beautiful eyes, Frances. I could swim inside them," she responds with a laugh, "That's exactly what American women would think Italian men would say."

..(Tuscan Sun is) so focused on Frances' love quest that it skimps on giving you a sense of what it's like to breathe that air, to eat that food - the book's driving forces...

If the screen version of "Under the Tuscan Sun" doesn't make your mouth water or inspire you to price out flights to Italy, what's the point? When you get this deep into Tuscany, the strongest smells should be basil, garlic, olives, espresso...not Hollywood.
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UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN: At Home in Italy

The Rolling Stone Review
Peter Travers

This adaptation of Frances Mayes' best seller gets two stars for two reasons: star Diane Lane, who is loveliness incarnate, and the Italian scenery, which isn't so bad either.

Otherwise, those allergic to chick flicks are hereby warned. How did Mayes' literary travelogue -- complete with recipes, lyrical descriptions of peach marmalade and the how-to of renovating a Tuscan villa with her husband -- become the sudsy story of Frances (Lane), the heartbroken divorcee from San Francisco looking for love in sunny Italy? Hollywood, that's how... Just soak up that Tuscan sun...
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'TUSCAN SUN: At Home in Italy' TRIES HARD TO PLEASE

By William Arnold
Seattle Post-Intellgencer
Friday, September 26, 2003

It seems to be a sure-fire formula for a women's picture -- the one about the lonely or naive or frigid young heroine from some rainy northern clime who serendipitously journeys to Italy and unexpectedly finds true love and peace of mind and herself.

It worked for Katharine Hepburn in "Summertime." It worked for Gidget in "Gidget Goes to Rome" and Suzanne Pleshette in "Rome Adventure," and a whole crew of women in "Enchanted April." It even worked for Hilary Duff a few weeks back in "The Lizzie McGuire Movie."And it works for Diane Lane in "Under the Tuscan Sun".

It's based on a best-selling memoir of the same name by Frances Mayes, but that's kind of like saying Bugs Bunny is based on "Harper's Book of Hares." Near as I can tell, the only thing the two have in common is the title, the character's name and an Italian setting.

.. Along the way, we meet a gallery of colorful and likably eccentric characters, take in miles of gorgeous scenery and chuckle through a succession of culture-clash situations...

.It's great to have Diane Lane finally top-billing a movie by herself. She may be the best actress of her generation (and the only one who actually tries to look her age -- 38). After 24 years of trying, she certainly deserves a big, breakthrough hit. But it will be ironic if this follow-up to her Oscar-nomination in last year's "Unfaithful" finally makes her a major star...
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UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN: At Home in Italy

BY Roger Ebert
September 26, 2003

RAA NOTE: Roger completely misses on the locale and gets distracted by the weather ????

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Running Length: 1:50
MPAA Classification: PG-13 (Profanity, sexual situations)
Cast: Diane Lane, Raoul Bova, Sandra Oh, Vincenzo Ricotta, Linday Duncan
Director: Audrey Wells
Producers: Audrey Wells, Tom Sternberg
Screenplay: Audrey Wells, based on the book by Frances Mayes
In English and Italian with subtitles