Under the Tuscan Sun is my absolute favorite film.
SPOILER ALERT!
(If you’ve not seen the film, watch it before reading this. In fact, I encourage you to listen to the soundtrack. It’s perfect.)
First, the setting. Hello, Tuscany? Cortona? Can a setting be more ripe for creativity? I’ve yet to travel to these places, but Italy is certainly on my bucket list.
Second, the soundtrack. It’s by far one of the best in film history. Lively, Tuscan-esque, cheery and heart-felt.
Third, the plot. It is very loosely based on a book of the same title by Frances Mayes who is played by Diane Lane. The title and the main character are about the only similarities between the two, but I highly recommend you read the book. It is full of description and beauty and life.
But above all of these, the characters in this film are, for me, the most relatable.
Enter the protagonist, Frances. I relate to her circumstance more than any character in fiction or film (that I have seen or read).
First, she is an author.
Yes, at the beginning of the film she appears to have this luscious life as a professor and author with a happy marriage, but when the inciting incident involves a husband who has left her for another woman, I deeply sympathize.
I have never been cheated on, however I have watched my relationships end, most initiated by the other party, not myself. I can relate to Frances’ state of shock, of a “I should have known”, feeling.
The way Frances’ life unfolds in the film, her choices and her setbacks, are what I relate to the most. Yes, it is a movie and she moves to Italy with ease, using funds from her divorce to purchase a home in Cortona, spending her days remodeling and making new friends, however just because she is living in Italy does not mean she is not dealing with an internal sense of loss. She has started over in her…let’s say mid-thirties, and she comes across as helpless and completely lost.
Yep. Been there. Haven’t you?
In one scene, she’s remodeling her home and she finds a snake, watches as it slinks its way into her house from an open window. She calls on a male friend who comes and checks for the snake, but does not find it [Aside-snakes are a symbol for transition-when one crosses your path it can mean it’s time for rebirth, healing and transformation] It’s symbolism such as this that adds so much more to the messages in this film.
While this man is standing in her bedroom after searching for the snake, Frances begins to cry. “What am I doing here?” She asks in despair. She’d bought this house because she still had wishes, even after the man she thought loved her left. She still wanted things.
I have been there, too. Losing relationships and finding that despite the pain I still wanted, still want, good things in my life. To not give up.
And Frances goes on to say, “I want there to be a family in this house, I want a wedding in this house.”
Her friend tells her to have faith.
Yes, story of my life. We all want things, but as the song goes we can’t always get what we want. But if we have faith and we keep trying, we will get what we need. Maybe more.
As the film continues, Frances remains stuck in her grief. She meets a stereotypically attractive Italian man, they have a few romps in the sheets, and as soon as she thinks she’s got all her life back together, he moves on to someone else.
And she is devastated.
This is the story’s climax.
Again, I’ve been there. Expectations are a bitch. It’s the point in the film where Frances finally gives up, gives in, to her reality. She may not find love, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
My favorite scene in the entire film is right at this juncture, when you can see by Frances’s slow and aimless walk, by her tired eyes and drooped face, that she has given up. She has surrendered. She seems tired of trying over and over again, only to fail. This is the point in the film when the acting and characterization are so strong I can no longer tell Frances’s experience from my own.
Is she really tired of trying, or is that me projecting my feelings onto her? When you cannot tell the difference, when the illusion of separation between character and reader/watcher dissipates and you become “one”, it’s a feeling of relatability.
I can see myself in Frances. Despite she is a cisgender, straight woman, I have experienced her struggles. I have been let down in similar ways. I have felt her pain. And it makes sense that her only choice is to let go and make peace with her reality.
Without giving too much away, there is an incredibly satisfying ending. There are so many beautiful life lessons tied into this film, I could write and write about it.
When this film came out in 2003, I saw it in the theater. I have a copy of the DVD, and have since watched it an estimated twenty or more times. Every time, I see Frances in a different life, and I learn more about myself. I receive different, needed lessons each time. Despite how much my life has changed in the last 16 years, the lesson remains the same: let go, have faith. Live your life with childish enthusiasm, and “things will go your way”.
What about you? Who’s the most relatable character in film? Who have you connected to the most, in all of fiction?