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List Price: $14.99 | | Label: Walt Disney Video
Salesrank: 4931
Released: February 3, 2004 |
| Our Price: $6.81 |
| Used Price: $1.99 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
From the studio that brought you SWEET HOME ALABAMA comes the extraordinary romantic comedy starring Academy Award(R) nominee Diane Lane (2002 Best Actress, UNFAITHFUL). Based on the #1 New York Times best-selling book, UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN follows San Francisco writer Frances Mayes (Lane) to Italy as a good friend offers her a special gift -- 10 days in Tuscany. Once there, she is captivated by its beauty and warmth, and impulsively buys an aging, but very charming, villa. Fully embracing new friends and local color, she finds herself immersed in a life-changing adventure filled with enough unexpected surprises, laughter, friendship, and romance to restore her new home -- and her belief in second chances.
Description of Under the Tuscan Sun (Full Screen Edition):
Though she made her first movie at the age of 13, Diane Lane has only blossomed into a true star in her 30s, and Under the Tuscan Sun marks her full flowering. After a brutal divorce, Frances (Lane, Unfaithful, A Walk on the Moon) is persuaded by her friend Patti (Sandra Oh) to take a tour of Italy--where, on a whim that she hopes will rescue her from her desperate unhappiness, she buys a rundown villa and sets out to renovate it. Along the way, she gets advice from a former Fellini actress, meets a scrumptious Italian lover, and helps support Patti after her own relationship derails. The conclusion of Under the Tuscan Sun holds no surprises, but the deft turns and observations along the way are delightful. Lane carries the film effortlessly but surely, exuding both heartbreak and re-awakening passion. --Bret Fetzer
Under the Tuscan Sun (Full Screen Edition) Reviews:
Diane Lane 
2009-11-24 - The reason I ordered this movie is because I absolutely love it and wanted to have my own copy to watch whenever I wanted. I also appreciate the low prices of movies on Amazon.
Great to watch with a girlfriend (Chick Flick) 
2009-11-24 - Great to watch with a girlfriend (Chick Flick). Any movie with Diane Lane is Great!
It's a very good one.
2009-10-02 - I have not seen this in a wile. But what I remember this is a very good one. I love this movie. If I could only pick about 30 movies that I could have this would be one of them.
-Raymond Day
"They built the tracks before there was a train that could make the trip..."
2009-09-26 - I have this movie on my short list of fairy tale / fable / suspension of disbelief movies, along with other "some people love it / some people hate it" films like Serendipity, About Schmidt, Something's Gotta Give, Sideways (Widescreen Edition), and Local Hero.
These films all have one thing in common: the protagonists find themselves in situations where life hasn't turned out the way they planned, or a major "life event" takes something away from them, and in their own moment of lack and the inevitable pull toward self-pity, they find that the less they focus on what they lack and more on the blessings they have (usually in the form of other people in their lives), the more the their needs are met...and often on a grander scale than they'd previously imagined.
In short, some times you lay down and get up to find yourself covered with ladybugs. People who have seen the film will get that reference immediately.
There are a number of reasons to watch the movie, beginning with Diane Lane. She manages to bring the viewer right up to the point where they might be turned off by the whining and self-pity, and theby stop "rooting for" her...but she never crosses that line. She keeps her character human, and part of being human is feeling loss and disappointment. What separates the people who stay in that frame of mind from the ones who eventually prosper is a willingness to get up and keep moving, even when "life hurts" and you'd rather not.
That's what the movie is all about. In the beginning, following her divorce, her friend Patti (the amazing Sandra Oh) tries to convince her to take a trip to Tuscany. She decides she can't, and relocates the pity party to a cramped, noisy apartment. Fortunately, she lacks a tolerance for her new environment and it's off to Tuscany we go.
From that point on, there are too many spoilers, so I'll stop here. My feeling is that there are probably more people who have seen the movie and are reading the reviews to see what others think than there are people deciding if they want to watch it.
In the modern, cynical world, there is a certain amount of scorn directed toward these little "fables" and "life lessons." However, taking a moment to watch them reminds us that we are all human, we are all fragile, and we all can make a simple decision to do the best we can with what we have, and to always give thanks for what we've got.
Romantic, Beautiful
2009-09-19 - I loved the story. It shows the journey that a woman may go through in discovery of herself. One of my favorite romantic movies.
