If you've never quite understood the term 'chick flick', rent Under The Tuscan Sun.  Well-off middle-aged white woman rebuilds her life, there's gorgeous scenery, gorgeous platters of food, and a selection of appealing men.

So yes, call it fantasy wish fulfillment.  But hey, if you have to rebuild your life 'in place', this movie and some chocolate will make a nice evening.

The story begins in San Francisco, where writer and college professor Frances (Diane Lane) is blindsided by a divorce from her she-didn't-know-he-was-cheating husband.  (Oddly, the husband never even makes an appearance in this movie.)  Frances sinks into the predictable slough of despond, until her friends the Cute Lesbian Couple insist that she take their place on the tour they were planning to take to Italy.   (Cute Lesbian Patti, played by Sandra Oh, has decided to have a baby instead.)

So there's Frances on the Gay And Away package tour of Tuscany (and admit it, doesn't being the only straight woman on a gay package tour sound like fun?) when she spots an ad for a rundown villa.  She's.... tempted. 

"Are you going to buy it?" asks mystery woman Katherine (Lindsay Duncan).   Buy a house in a foreign country?  What a terrible idea, responds Frances.  "Terrible ideas," muses Katherine.  "Don't you just love those?"

(Get used to Katherine, because she's got an important role in this movie - I think she plays Id.)

As the bus moves on, they drive right by that very villa, and Frances comes to a Turning Point.  "Stop the bus!" 

And she abandons the package tour to buy the Tuscan villa.  

So yes, it's a tad rundown.  But it is over three centuries old, after all, and on the upside it's got those lovely multi-tonal walls like Debbie Travis fauxes on The Painted House.  (Hmm - I just realized what a perfect fit this movie is for fans of HGTV.)

Frances hires a crew of Polish laborers and sets about refurbishing her house and her life.   On a trip to Rome looking for chandelier parts, she meets a guy, and he's a cutie.  Marcello (Raoul Bova) is good looking, attentive, and great in bed.  But this savvy viewer knew right away that he was not the guy.  First, because it was too soon in the movie, and second because that's old chick flick convention.

An earlier generation of chick flick would heal the heroine who's been dumped by presenting her with a man better than the one she lost.  But new generation chick flick is all about Learning To Love Yourself and then when you're ready, the man magically appears.

Frances isn't ready.  After that one great encounter, she and Marcello keep missing chances to be together.  In one instance, she's heading out the door for a romantic weekend, but Patti shows up on her doorstep.  Remember Patti, half of the cute lesbian couple?  Well, now she's been dumped.  Her significant other decided she wasn't ready for motherhood after all, so here's Patti, come to Tuscany and massively pregnant.

Basically, Frances assembles an ad hoc family with Patti and baby and Polish laborers.  (Considering the way she feeds her honorary family, I'm considering a trip to Tuscany to try to wangle an adoption.) 

Under The Tuscan Sun is the heavily fictionalized version of food and travel writer Frances Mayes' non-fiction book by the same name.  (Psst!  The book has recipes!)   The adaption to chickflickery is well done. 

One screenwriting quibble, though.  The villa is a hotbed of indigenous lifestock, and in one scene a snake crawls in the window.   Frances searches the house for the snake, assisted by helpful friend/realtor Mr. Martini (Vincent Riotta), but they don't find the snake.  This is just a setup for a Highly Significant Conversation, but my quibble is that the snake is never heard from again. 

That's just poor scripting.  Like the old saw goes, if you show the audience a gun in the first act, it had better fire before the curtain.

Unless they're saving the snake for a sequel with Samuel L. Jackson.

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