Diane Lane is a class act. Even after a full day of doing press for her film, UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN, she was gracious, articulate, and even playful. But make no mistake, this is a woman who takes her craft very seriously, something that comes across in every performance. When we talked on August 22, 2003, topics included gender issues in film, the importance of just the right hair style and one of my favorite films of hers, A WALK ON THE MOON.
Diane Lane can channel feeling with such conviction, with such clarity, and with such purity that she seems to be living each emotion with every fiber of her being and, more, makes us in the audience feel it, too. If Julia Roberts et als have the glitz and the buzz, Lane has the raw talent and delivers it in every performance.
Readers of the book of the same name by Frances Mayes will find some radical changes from that work. Here Frances is not facing rebuilding a villa with her husband, but rather is on the short end of an ugly divorce. Sent on a gay bus tour of Italy by her lesbian best friends to restore her spirits, Frances is entranced by one of the small towns on the tour. The glorious scenery, a mysterious English woman wandering the open market dispensing cryptic advice, and a villa offered for sale provide an irresistible temptation and almost without realizing what she’s doing, Frances has leapt off the tour bus, bought the villa, and embarked on a new life that she could never have imagined.
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