| 'A Comedy of Confused Expectations' Vivienne DuBourdieu on 'Under a Tuscan Sun' at the Watermans
With ice bullets currently hailing out of the London sky, some Italian sun might seem a happy alternative to the early days of May. Our volatile weather is akin to the heroine’s emotional fluctuations in Under the Tuscan Sun The storyline combines pathos with travel mileage when novelist and book critic, Frances (Diane Lane), finds that her fairly new husband has left her for another woman. The law says she has to pay alimony or give him the house, and the tears flow like summer rain. In a mood of largesse because one of them is pregnant, two lesbian friends present Frances with a ticket for a gay tour of Tuscany. After all, they reason, the Italians know how to enjoy life. But over-sensitive Frances soon abandons the ‘gaiety bus’ for a dilapidated old house in the countryside. From then on, the travel shoot more-or-less settles down to close location meanderings about renovation the Italian way - with a DIY crew of Polish helpers. Frances has a knack of collecting charming, if improbable, friends and lovers, and meanders from extravagant storms of cooking to squalls of depression over her lack of permanent partner or family. ‘A comedy of confused expectations,’ according to Waterman’s, Under the Tuscan Sun which is currently showing the film. |