The distilled essence of Chick Flick, right down to the gender of writer-director Audrey Wells: a free adaptation of the Frances Mayes memoir of a San Francisco divorcée who inherits a ten-day gay tour of Italy (Gay and Away) from a pregnant lesbian no longer willing to fly, and who then makes an impulse-purchase of a dilapidated villa in Cortona, cooks meals for her Polish immigrant construction crew, receives spiritual guidance from a flighty Englishwoman claiming acquaintance with Fellini, and embarks on a rejuvenating affair with a younger Italian reminiscent of Rosanno Brazzi in puckery sensitivity: "Francesca, I'm going to make love all over you." (Try not to visualize something triple-X.) Though the pallid color scarcely does justice to the setting, the narrative events go down easily, almost liquidly, if none too fillingly. The tallest part of the tale, a lightning storm that launches a washing machine into midair and deposits an owl in the bedroom, is so fantastically Brothers Grimm that it could only be true. Diane Lane, in the lead role, continues in her Unfaithful vein of forcing every little twitch and tremor of interior life out onto the surface. And Sandra Oh, as the expectant lesbian, provides the solid support that seems to be her lot. Lindsay Duncan, Raoul Bova. (2003) — Duncan Shepherd
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