Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Full disclosure: I am a recently (ecstatically) divorced woman living my life happily as a whole person without (gasp!) a man. Also a successful and hard-working writer.Diane Lane does as well as she can, but this "a woman's happiness is with a man" shtick is tired. A divorced American writer who lost her San Francisco house to her ex and his lover travels to Italy and suddenly has the wherewithal to buy a run-down Italian money-pit villa where men emerge everywhere to make her feel better? Without having to resort to (gasp!) actual writing work? What happened to truly finding your self and caring for that person, regardless of who is around to fluff up your ego? A friend recommended this because I love Italy (the real one, not this 50s fantasy) and was recently divorced. Give me "Enchanted April" instead where women discover they are complete just as they are, without any hangers on or people to tell them how great/beautiful/amazing they are. Not against men, just against anyone defining themselves solely by a relationship. What ever happened to loving human partnerships where both are able to fulfill themselves in the context of the relationship? Sorry I wasted the hour and a half. Better off petting the cat and enjoying just being alive.

OK, first of all a heads up... I'm a British man of 56, having just watched this on the TV on a lazy Sunday afternoon, when I could of been catching up with Glastonbury or the football (Euro 2016). Not, I guess, the target audience.Well, as I sat there on the sofa with my cuppa, enjoying the scenery, and this striking lady who I hadn't seen before, (trust me, I know Diane now, and have a list of her films to watch), I just became entranced.I know I'm being manipulated, the mass of stereotypes, the fact (unlike most of us) she can just cash buy a villa on a whim, BUT, I gave in and went for the ride, and it couldn't of been better. I didn't want it to end, the feel good, the decent people, the Tuscan sun! Add in fellow Brit Lindsay Duncan's great performance, the ensemble cast, and you have a joy to watch which surely will make anyone feel better.

This movie came out in 2004. I guess it must have been trying to somehow jump on the cultural bandwagon of gay women coming out on TV. Bad idea and a ruination of a great book! The women characters are most unbelievable paper dolls at best! Wrong time, way and place to make a cultural statement - and horrible dialogue. I loved the book and all the books by Mayes and looked forward to the delightful story of how she and her HUSBAND bought and remodeled their house in Tuscany. The husband was a great attraction because he was able to do the repairs and was also interested in aesthetics of food , wine and cultural history of Tuscany.this movie was like a made for TV movie. I think the script writer only read the book tile and looked at the cover photo to get her inspiration for the script. It reminds me of a 1960's Doris Day movie, second thought, the 60's Doris Day movies were better. I bought my copy at the thrift store for .25 cents. It was a wast of my money, but being so cheep, I din not feel too bad about tossing it in the trash. this movie sucks.

Why bother to visit Italy when you can just bring a bunch of tired clichés to life? They even managed to throw in some clichés about homosexuals just in case anyone needed a little extra patronizing. I have never been able to make it all the way through this disaster of a movie no matter how hard I tried. It's a mess on every level and even the scenery of Tuscany isn't enough to save it.I've always said that bad acting is the result of terrible directing and this film is a clinic of bad directing and terrible acting. How many stupid muggings can we watch of the protagonist expressing sadness, joy, pleasure, fear, surprise, disgust, or whatever? It's the director's responsibility to get what he or she wants and to instruct the actors. The best thing is to cut out all of the stupid and Completely obvious emotions and convey these things through dialogue whenever possible.The director lets her people run amuck in this thing. The English woman who appears like a phantom seems to be a female Liberace, and I don't mean that in a good way. She is simply another dumb stereotype of an eccentric, gentry-class denizen. Her lesbian friend is simply annoying. The three workers are paper-thin and wholely predictable at every turn.Ugh, I hated almost every scene in the film. She over-acts at almost every turn of the camera. Why did the director frame her face in so much of the film? Turn the sound off and watch this and I guarantee you will laugh yourself sick at the bad acting clinic she seems to be giving.The love angle in the movie was corny at best and embarrassing at worst and played like a teenage girl's rendering of how it should be. And finally she meets Joe Whitebread and lives happily ever after. Just completely horrible all along the way.