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Under the Tuscan Sun
Touchstone Pictures


5.4

based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 37 votes
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MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sexual content and language

Starring Diane Lane, Raoul Bova, Sandra Oh, Vincent Riotta, Dan Bucatinsky, Lindsay Duncan, and Kate Walsh

Inspired by the bestseller by Frances Mayes, this is the story of a woman (Lane) who travels to Tuscany in search of a new life.

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Drama \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Audrey Wells (also screen story) Frances Mayes (book Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy)
DIRECTED BY:	Audrey Wells
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 3, 2004 Video: February 3, 2004 Theatrical: September 26, 2003
RUNNING TIME:	113 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Film Threat Mark Sells

A charming, highly entertaining romantic adventure full of life, spectacular vistas, and sensual delight.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

All elements click in "Sun," a shimmering, deeply felt film.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

The cliches are obscured by the sheer fun of it all.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The whole movie is at once formulaic, clichéd and predictable, yet surprising, engaging and filled with subtle, unexpected details.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Movie and book both are delightful, but very, very different.

USA Today Staff (Not Credited)

A fun movie to sit through even when you don't always buy it.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

You come away enchanted less by the character than by the woman playing her.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

What redeems the film is its successful escapism, and Lane's performance. They are closely linked.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Chalk it all up to prettiness, if you like, but Lane's case has more to do with spirit -- with warmth and emotional readiness, plus a kind of open-book quality that makes her both lovely and comical, usually at the same time.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Diane Lane overplays many scenes, she tries way too hard to be ingratiating and, in many other ways, it's one of the least of her performances.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This is a beautifully shot motion picture, and there's no doubt that the lush scenery upstages the actors.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

While both the scenery and star Diane Lane are highly watchable, the movie is pure froth, a plate-sized helping of zabaglione.

Slate David Edelstein

The movie is sweet but deeply suspect: It's like "Lost Horizon" re-imagined by a realtor.

Variety Ronnie Scheib

Lane transforms this seriocomic saga of a devastated American divorcee who impulsively purchases a Tuscan villa, thereby changing her life, into a spellbinding display of emotional transparency.

The New Yorker David Denby

This movie, though perfectly pleasant, does not have a great script.

LA Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert

The movie is not without charm or humor, but it leaves little for Lane to do besides chuckle at setbacks as if they were naughty children.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Does at least come bearing two gifts: the rolling beauty of Tuscany and the understated elegance of actress Diane Lane. The rest of the film is fit fodder for the Oxygen Network.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The author was able to compensate for the book's plotlessness by contemplating other people leading full lives quite as important as hers. In Wells' movie adaptation, even the birth of a friend's baby becomes all about Frances and the play of emotions on Lane's busy, beautiful face.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Writer-director Audrey Wells never aims higher than postcard filmmaking, and Under The Tuscan Sun at least works on that level, by casting its little operetta of self-realization and remodeling travails against some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

It's a pleasure to watch Lane's delicately lived-in face tremble with feeling -- it's the truest thing in the movie -- but the character's desperation feels wrong, the worst kind of sellout.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The story of self-discovery through which the writer and director Audrey Wells leads Frances is eminently superficial, although Ms. Wells keeps the movie going with a steady, commanding hand and casts it with an actress who can deftly downshift from serene to sodden.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Most definitely a chick flick.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Just soak up that Tuscan sun and wonder when Lane will get another movie, like "Unfaithful" or "A Walk on the Moon," that will let her really shine.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

The dumbed-down movie version of Frances Mayes' best-selling travel memoir Under the Tuscan Sun is a virtual case study of Hollywood's irrepressible urge to lower the bar in the hopes of upping the take.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Lane...is as stunning and changeable as that Tuscan countryside. Without her, this movie would be irksome, pandering as it does to stereotypes, including that of the American woman who goes abroad for easy sex with limpid-eyed hunks.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The emotional honesty of [Lane's] performance provides a foundation that supports this shaky and often unbelievable Italian-set hybrid of "Shirley Valentine" and "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House."

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Rises only slightly above the level of a Harlequin romance.

Premiere Laine Ewen

An uneven love story but a picture-perfect love letter to Italy.

Empire Joe Berry

Packed with more clichés than a pizza has pepperoni slices, this is truly disappointing, especially after Lane’s stunning performance in "Unfaithful."

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

My cynical half hated it, despite the presence of Lane, who is so magnetic that she could prance around the countryside in the absence of plot and still be compelling somehow.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Rather than converting messy, real-life experience into slick, formulaic entertainment, Well's script transforms it into a shapeless, internally inconsistent mess of artificial contrivances.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The movie has some sex in it, and yet it's as unsexy as a rusty old olive oil can (minus the olive oil).

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It's like a music video of Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" filmed in the Chevy Chase Pottery Barn.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Unforeseeably bad things can happen to good performers.

Village Voice Anya Kamenetz

Only Sandra Oh, as the wisecracking lesbian Asian pregnant best friend, provides a bright spot. Get this sidekick her own sitcom!

The average user rating for this movie is 5.4 (out of 10) based on 37 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Nate H gave it a5:
This is absolutely a chick flick in the derogatory sense, but many of the scenes are beautiful because of the location. The supporting cast performed more skillfully and memorably than the bland protagonist.

shannon p. gave it a1:
Just really, really bad. It's like whoever wrote this script is a Martian whose only exposure to human life is TV sitcoms retreived from a time capsule . . . then the Martian tries to write a movie script about life on earth. Every person associated with this movie should be locked in a room together for a month and be made to watch it over and over and over with a laugh track added following every cliche.

G.M. D.K. gave it a9:
One of 2003's most satysfying films.

Keith K. gave it a 9:
All of these so-called critics are full of #@$%! They are so busy trying to come up with something negatively witty that they completely miss the fact that this is a quality movie, with great acting, that will be looked back on in time as one of the all time greats. YOU watch the movie then read the comments by these fancy critics....you'll see, they are full of it! This was a wonderful movie....Diane Lane was excellent...and I have watched it four times now. I am a guy and I loved it!

Christine M. gave it a 10:
This has to be one of the best movies I have ever seen! Diane is beautiful & such a great actress :)

Rob M. gave it a 0:
I would have rather tried to have all of my fingernails and toenails removed instead of sitting through this awful movie. Poorest movie of its kind. Yuck!

Ken B. gave it a 10:
I have been alive for 40 years now and finally have seen the movie of all time! Audrey Wells did a perfect job with screen play and directing, and couldn't have found a more perfect lead in Diane Lane. Diane has a million expressions and faces...I loved all of them! Sit back and enjoy the fantasy.

Under the Tuscan Sun Touchstone Pictures

Under the Tuscan Sun
Touchstone Pictures