Starring: Diane Lane (I), Raoul Bova, Sandra Oh

7 out of 10 stars

If you didn't know it with indie flick My New Gun, art-house fave A Walk on the Moon or sleek adultery thriller Unfaithful, then by the end of Under the Tuscan Sun you'll know that Diane Lane is one of the best American actresses working today. With a face that can convey a panorama of emotions in mere seconds, a poise beyond words, a timeless beauty that only gets better with age, and eyes that no matter how happy she is still show a hint of sadness, Lane has trod almost virtually unknown in the shadow of icons like Jessica Lange, and even contemporaries like Julianne Moore. Actually, she is Lange's contemporary; around the time Lange was angsting in Frances, Lane was the darling of then-waning Francis Ford Coppola, her teen beauty incandescent in both The Outsiders and Rumble Fish. She was good back then, and she's phenomenal now.

This is a long, roundabout, and granted, rhapsodic way of saying that Lane is very, very good in Under the Tuscan Sun, a lightweight comedy-drama based on Frances Mayes' runaway bestseller about a divorced woman, a run-down house and the Northern Italian countryside. And while Sun itself may not be as very, very good as its leading lady, at its best it's quite an enjoyable romp through every American-woman-in-lusty-Europe movie cliché, and it substitutes saccharine for a wry knowingness that mixes bitterness and laughter with a dash of hopeful cynicism. But Lane is a wonder to watch, and her performance both honors the conventions of the screenplay and mocks them ever so gently, giving a surprising amount of heart to this modern-day fairy tale.

Mayes' book was a warmly embraced memoir about the wonder that is Tuscany and the joys and heartbreaks involved in her renovation of a dilapidated villa; it helped that the author was a poet, a frequent food and travel writer, and the head of the creative writing department at San Francisco State University. Alas, Hollywood dictates the necessity of an actual storyline, and writer-director Audrey Wells obliges by grafting a standard divorced-woman-finding-herself tale onto Mayes' ode to all things Italian. Happily, Wells' "fleshing out" is the exception to the sentimental rule, and her introductory scenes of Frances in San Francisco are bright, sad, incisive cameos of a life gone quietly haywire. Mired in post-divorce depression, Frances is badgered by her lesbian best friend (Sandra Oh) into leaving the Bay Area for a "Gay and Away" tour of Italy; Frances hops on a plane, then a bus and almost instantly encounters her dream home, falling into decay but still beckoning to her. She can barely afford it, but as she puts it to the contessa who's selling it, "I can't go back there." Only Lane could make this line both funny and heartbreaking. With the help of a Polish renovation crew, fellow outcasts adrift in the Italian countryside, she sets to fixing up her villa and by association, fixing up her life.

The characters attendant to Frances' life change could have been drawn widely – the Englishwoman with a lust for life (and men), the charming young Polish worker in love with a Tuscan maiden, the handsome (and married) real estate agent, and of course, the requisite Italian lover straight out of romance novel with kind eyes, a hard body and an endless supply of romantic bon mots – but in Wells' hand, they're all polite, friendly, engaging company who wisely never overstay their welcome. They're all easy on the eyes too, especially Raoul Bova, who becomes the latest in a long line of exotic men to fall into bed with Lane. Too good to be true (oh, sorry if I spoiled anything, but like you couldn't see that coming), he's nonetheless funny, sexy and just charming enough to seem ever so slightly attainable. And Wells makes their courtship scenes both dreamy and realistic – and most importantly, smart and well-constructed, with dialogue circling around back to itself and tentative enough to seem almost spontaneous. She does resort to a certain amount of shorthand, but it's never the insultingly unintelligent kind found in innumerable Sandra Bullock/Meg Ryan/Julia Roberts romantic comedies – it always hints at further depths to be found underneath the surface.

In the end, though, the string of vignettes – including a pregnant Oh ensconcing herself at the villa, leavened by the actress' wry line readings – don't ever really coalesce into a fully fleshed-out tale, and Wells tips her hand ever so slightly near the end with the introduction of a character who might as well be wearing a "Deus Ex Machina" t-shirt. Still, with all the warm feeling she's worked up, you'll be hard-pressed to leave the theater without at least the tiniest glow. Best of all, Under the Tuscan Sun gives Lane a chance (finally) to excel at comedy, a gift which hasn't been on display since… well, pretty much not since Lane's film debut 24 years ago in A Little Romance. Given all the angst she's been put through in movies, seeing Lane let loose is enough to make anyone giddy. A second Oscar nomination is probably too much to hope for, but Lane deserves it.