Admittedly, I was surprised. This isn't the type of movie that normally appeals to me, and yet I was really quite taken with it on a number of counts. It could be described as a very gentle movie (even mildly spiritual in some ways) full of sage advice about life and how to handle the disappointments that naturally appear, and - being somewhat stereotypically Italian in its presentation - it has a lot about love and romance and flirtatiousness in it. It even packs a bit of humour. Not a typical guy's movie, but still very pleasant viewing. What I particularly liked was the premise that essentially started the whole thing off. Frances (in a great performance by Diane Lane) discovers that her husband is having an affair, and they end up divorced - and, she being the primary bread winner - he gets the house and alimony. The lesson? When your life falls apart, move on to something completely different and start picking up the pieces. Frances buys a villa in Tuscany and restarts her life, with us watching. Her problems aren't solved. She seems to think that everything revolves around finding a man and romance, but - as her friend Martini points out near the end of the movie - she ends up with everything she wanted - just not in the way she expected to get it.
At times, it's a bit slow-paced, and it's not "exciting" in the way we think of the word, but it's got a quality that draws you into it. As far as the story is concerned, my only quibble might be the introduction of the character of "Ed" right at the end of the movie. Everything to that point had led to the understanding that Frances didn't need romance to be fulfilled; she had found her fulfillment with the people she had assembled around her, who had become a surrogate family. I suppose it's nice that she found someone to love, but the movie on the whole would have been more satisfying if it had ended with the gathering at the dinner table with all her friends - without Ed! That was an unsatisfying intrusion into an otherwise satisfying story. 7/10
