My Husband Made Me Do It

Under the Tuscan Sun

Katie Reynolds and Lydea Irwin Season 1 Episode 124

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We're watching Under the Tuscan Sun this week, and going back to what we're now learning was a fantastic year for the American economy: 2003. No wonder 35-year-old women felt so much more settled than they do today... Seriously, if we didn't know what she looked like and someone told us Frances was in her 50s, we'd believe them. It makes a lot more sense.  

Frances, played by Diane Lane, is a writer recovering from a recent divorce. She takes the advice of her best friend, Patti, played by Sandra Oh, and goes to Italy on vacation. She buys a fixer-upper villa, makes friends and forms a family.  

You can find this movie for streaming on Hulu. 

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Katie Reynolds

Hello and welcome to my Husband Made Me Do it, the podcast where we review rom-coms that my husband made me watch. I'm your host, Katie Reynolds, and I'm Lydea Irwin, and today, at the beginning of allergy season, we are watching Under the Tuscan Sun. Yes, under the Tuscan Sun. Brace yourself is what I'm saying.

Lydea Irwin

It's going to be a bumpy ride for at least one of us. Under the Tuscan Sun is a 2003 romantic comedy drama, PG-13, an hour and 53 minutes, and I streamed it on hulu oh, did you?

Katie Reynolds

we ended up renting it. I don't know why we have hulu. I think someone just didn't want to look hard enough to find it.

Lydea Irwin

I'll let him know, don't worry and today's imdb summary does come from imdb hashtag, not sponsored. Francis maize, a 35 year old san francisco writer, gets a divorce that leaves her with terminal writer's block and depression. Later, she decides to buy a house in Tuscany in order to change her life.

Katie Reynolds

She's 35. I did not clock that she was 35. I spent this whole movie thinking. Here are my thoughts in general. This is a movie for women who are much later in life, who have had some major change to it, like 50s. I didn't think she was in her 50s but I would never have clocked her at 35.

Lydea Irwin

I I would have pictured maybe early 40s. As someone who is 36, I did not see myself in this character not at all. Not at all so but I I have. I do think that like and I know we haven't recapped the movie yet and we maybe should save this for later but I do think that people our age are, like younger than people our age were like 20 years ago?

Katie Reynolds

Well, because let's talk about when this movie was done. So what is the?

Lydea Irwin

year yeah.

Katie Reynolds

Our generation came up and we've been pretty delayed on everything.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah it just had to be. Yeah, so I think that's what it is. I think people back then were more settled and more adult, although At younger ages but Her friend is just having a child for the very first time.

Katie Reynolds

It's true, and presumably they're around the same age. Yeah, hard to tell. Yeah, presumably they're around the same age. Hard to tell, with no idea Around the same age, so I don't know. But yeah, I would not have clocked her as being mid-30s at all, nope.

Lydea Irwin

So let's talk about this one.

Katie Reynolds

All right, yeah, we start off at a party. It's a writer's event. Yeah, book release party maybe. Yeah.

Lydea Irwin

I think that's what it is. Yeah, um, but but a casual one. So we've got our book release party. The author was a student of our main character, frances. We meet her best friend, patty, played by sandra o I've not seen her in a long time no, frances is played by diane lane, who is very pretty. What happened to her?

Katie Reynolds

she's still doing things. I don't know.

Lydea Irwin

Actually I have not seen her in a while. We've got her as a professor of literature.

Katie Reynolds

She does a bunch of reviews apparently she writes a lot of nasty reviews not nasty, but there's.

Lydea Irwin

There's some some intense criticism, yes, which we find out because she meets a guy at the party who knows her but she doesn't know him. She reviewed one of his books and said that she couldn't relate to the main character because he was a middle-aged guy living out his teenage fantasies. He thinks that is, in fact, realistic and she should ask her husband about it yeah, who's also another author I don't know what her husband does.

Katie Reynolds

He was at at home writing his book. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, I think he must be also an author. But we find out well, we don't really find out anything other than they're getting a divorce. We're a few months later.

Katie Reynolds

Oh, he was definitely cheating on her. We know that and the girlfriend is pregnant. Yeah, mm-hmm.

Lydea Irwin

Yep, because she wants the house and she's going to use her money to help him buy Francis out of the house.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, yeah, she gets a lot of information all at once when talking to her attorney. Yeah, so not only so he's getting half the house Fine, he also wants alimony because she was supporting him.

Lydea Irwin

Yep While he was writing, pretending to work.

Katie Reynolds

Yes, as she put it. Yes, so he wants, instead of long term, he wants a two hundred thousand dollar buyout which he'll just use from her proceeds from the house. Yeah which yeah, so and then she finds out all the money from her grant her inheritance from her grandma yes to fix up so this is like her, her darling house and this is the moment she also finds out that, yeah, the girlfriend is pregnant, and all this yeah, they want it because it's in good neighborhoods, it's good schools yes yep, so you?

Katie Reynolds

you think she's gonna take furniture from the house and she ends up leaving everything she takes like three boxes of books and that is it, and I think a trinket yes she takes the flowers out, she pours the water on the ground and takes the face little glass, glass vase she's hired this whole moving crew. Forget it. Three boxes.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, so she moves into an apartment this apartment.

Katie Reynolds

so the landlord is there pitching it to her, and he's pitching it as oh, they have a lot of short-term residents, a lot of people going through divorces Furnished short-term rentals yeah. Furnished short-term rentals yes. There's a doctor upstairs who prescribes sleeping medication to everybody. There's a lawyer next door who will help her Advice. Free legal advice. And he is right next door.

Lydea Irwin

You can hear him sobbing the entire time, but if you just knock and tell him to shut up quiet down, he will, I love you. He says sorry, it's just quiet oh goodness, yeah, so that's pretty hilarious. So she moves into this apartment, we have dinner with patty and patty girlfriend played by another Grey's Anatomy.

Katie Reynolds

And she's playing a doctor too, isn't?

Lydea Irwin

she Katherine Heigl.

Katie Reynolds

Oh, is that who it was? Yes, oh, clearly I was paying attention to IMDb.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, all right, so, yeah. So I thought that was funny that they were both friends. On Grey's Anatomy she's playing a doctor. We only see her in this one scene, but they're celebrating the divorce. She's finally free. She's got a cake with freedom written on it.

Katie Reynolds

And she notices that her friend Patty is not drinking anything, which?

Lydea Irwin

is a surprise.

Katie Reynolds

Oh, I'm assuming IVF has finally worked. Fifth time, fifth time. That is expensive and that is an emotional rollercoaster, I am sure. But yeah, finally worked, hooray. So she's very excited. She's going to be an aunt.

Lydea Irwin

Yes, Now they were supposed to go on a romantic trip to Tuscany, yeah, like a 10-day thing, yeah, and they've decided because they don't want her traveling in the first trimester, which seems like the best time to travel.

Katie Reynolds

But I don't know, maybe something goes wrong, I don't know.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah yeah, it's the first trimester. You want to be close to your doctor I guess yeah, okay especially if they've had to try five times. That's seriously yeah um so so they upgraded their two seats in coach to one seat in first class and they have transferred everything to her so she can take the gain away to her tuscany. At first she's like no, I don't want to go and I keep wanting to call her Sandra, because that's her name, but Patty.

Katie Reynolds

Patty with an I.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, Patty's like look, you're in danger of never recovering.

Katie Reynolds

You're going to be an empty shell person.

Lydea Irwin

Don't be a chicken s**t, just go. And she's like, okay, I'll think about it. And then in the apartment the guy is crying and she, she tells him to quiet down and he's like, okay, sorry, do you want to come over? And she's like, no, maybe later. Oh, my God, maybe later. She's like, okay, that's that changes her mind, her mind for sure. Yeah, but all of the gay couples on this trip are so supportive of her. The bus, the tour bus driver calls her out. Yep, they, yeah. Awkward and hilarious because she's the only single, isn't she? And straight person yeah, yeah.

Katie Reynolds

So or is she the only single? Because I was very confused about that guy who's sitting next to her, the one who ends up being kind of reynolds, or I've got it written down, rodney.

Lydea Irwin

Rodney, I knew it started with an r, yeah yeah, he's sitting by her without any. She sits next to a couple different people and I always thought it was weird that it was like why? Are why aren't they sitting next to their partner, right? So maybe there are some straight. Well, then he's off by himself too, yeah.

Katie Reynolds

So there might be some singles on the trip. Yeah, maybe.

Lydea Irwin

I don't know.

Katie Reynolds

I have no idea. We just know it's specifically catering to gay clientele. Yes, that's true.

Lydea Irwin

It may not be a couples trip, it may just be a gay trip, and so yeah, anyway, they're all very supportive, they end up at this one market.

Katie Reynolds

She sees a woman rubbing a duckling on her face.

Lydea Irwin

It's so weird.

Katie Reynolds

I called her duck lady forever.

Lydea Irwin

What is she doing to this duck?

Katie Reynolds

I don't know, it is a soft, fuzzy little duckling and she is rubbing it on her face.

Lydea Irwin

Now she's got a big hat on she's, so an American visiting Italy, except she's not she's English.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, question mark. She's a questionable. Her accent is something yeah.

Lydea Irwin

That's for sure. But yeah, so she follows the duck lady, loses her and then writes a postcard for Rodney.

Katie Reynolds

And Rodney's, like my mom, won't believe that I wrote this. What is this? It smells like purple or tastes like purple. It's a very florid. Shall we say yeah, florid is exactly the word.

Lydea Irwin

I was thinking as well, it's very romantic, yeah, as well, and it's. You know. She's getting her creative juices flowing and she looks at a window that has a bunch of for sale signs oh yeah, so it's real estate.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, and there is a pic like a hand-drawn picture yeah not an actual photograph of this villa that is for sale yep. Here's a sign of how long ago this is.

Lydea Irwin

Italy is still on the lira wow, that hadn't even, yeah, crossed my mind, yeah I remember when they switched. I mean it was yeah, it was short. I think it was right after.

Katie Reynolds

This movie was like high school or college it was definitely while I was abroad, which was shortly after this.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, yeah, wow so the duck lady whose name we haven't learned yet, and I call her duck lady and hat lady kind of interchangeably, because she always has a ridiculous hat on too she does, and somehow she knows everybody who's anybody in this area um, so the the duck lady talks to her a little bit and is like oh, you're going to buy the villa and she says this with gelato in her hand which they repeatedly call ice cream, which is very weird yeah, they're saying gelato in italian and they just translate it as ice cream yeah oh, they are different they are not the same.

Katie Reynolds

Equally tasty, but not the same absolutely so, yeah.

Lydea Irwin

So she's. She's like, no, I'm not gonna, no, that'd be crazy. No, no, no. And then she's on the bus, back on the bus tour, and the bus gets stopped in front of the villa. Some sheep, because of sheep, it's a sign it's a sign she she thinks about it. And yeah, she's sitting next to rodney again. Yeah, like, okay, whatever. Yeah, she's holding the postcard that he was like he just gave it to her. He's like keep it, because what am I gonna do with this?

Katie Reynolds

yeah, there's some snark. She just gets off the bus with her luggage and then she just rollerbags her way to this, to the front door, lets herself in. She's shouting hello. Thankfully it's being shown at the moment, because there's no way anyone actually lives here in its present state.

Lydea Irwin

No, it's the old lady selling it.

Katie Reynolds

Contessa and the realtor, oh, martini, martini.

Lydea Irwin

Yep, I just call him the realtor. Nope, it's Martini. The names took a while to be introduced.

Katie Reynolds

They did.

Lydea Irwin

For a lot of characters.

Katie Reynolds

Yes so.

Lydea Irwin

I would give them a name in my notes and then they would eventually get it and I wasn't gonna change it kiara, for example, took how long? She's olive girl there's polish boy and olive girl. They said powell right away. Oh, they did. Yeah, he was still polish boy okay, no, it's because I didn't know how to spell Powell. I did have.

Katie Reynolds

IMDB open for that one I did.

Lydea Irwin

And that's his actual name. Oh, the actor's name. The actor's name it's Powell. Okay, yeah.

Katie Reynolds

Someone was real creative, right Like, we don't know Polish names. What is your name, actor boy?

Lydea Irwin

So back to where we are so there's the realtor and there's a couple who have decided to buy this house right now.

Katie Reynolds

These are the most stereotypical European people, oh my God, I have ever seen they're already holding up like different wallpapers to put on the wall.

Lydea Irwin

They're like, oh, we're going to buy this Incredibly fashionable.

Katie Reynolds

Yes.

Lydea Irwin

The contest is coming over and it's like well, they've, they've already, they've agreed to purchase it too quickly, so we clearly didn't ask for enough. So I want another three million.

Katie Reynolds

It was a lot more. Yeah, I don't remember how much it was, yeah it was, it was in the millions, for sure.

Lydea Irwin

And then she was like no, double it yeah.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and then because our uh hero, okay, her name is francis, but it changes depending on who is talking to her. So if an italian person is talking to her, which happens most of the time, she's francesca. Yep, so I'm just gonna go with francesca, because I think that's what I have in my notes francesca, she didn't get a name, she's just she main character mc.

Katie Reynolds

So francesca comes over and starts asking about the house as well, which the two who are trying to buy it see. Oh no, she's immediately competition there's. This is going to be a bidding war. And they do start to turn it into a bidding war. She really doesn't have much by way of money.

Lydea Irwin

We don't know how much she has, or how much this house?

Katie Reynolds

actually we have no idea.

Lydea Irwin

How much is that? No, we don't.

Katie Reynolds

Well, we know she doesn't have a lot in terms of assets.

Lydea Irwin

The only asset she had really was her house yeah, but apparently they made a lot of money on the house. Do you send them out enough that she could?

Katie Reynolds

she could buy this, yeah dumpster fire right, so I'm sure it's very lovely once it's cleaned up. It has a faucet in the middle of the hallway yeah what I'm assuming it's to clean the floors. I don't know.

Lydea Irwin

It's a very ornate old rusted faucet.

Katie Reynolds

It is.

Lydea Irwin

And she bumps into it.

Katie Reynolds

initially it's just sticking right out in front of the door.

Lydea Irwin

That is a tetanus hazard. Shoulder height it's not like low. No idea what that's um so anyway I don't know a lot about I was wondering if it was like a holy water font or something like oh, you gotta wash your hands when you come into the I don't know italian catholic thing I don't know.

Katie Reynolds

Clearly, we know so much about 300, 300 year old italian villas, so so the couple leaves, they just give up. They're in a rage. The lady shouts fascist after them, unprovoked Fascist.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, they leave and she's like, well, here's how much I can afford. And she's like here's how much money I made off of the house, minus the work that needs to be done, minus the people, minus some chocolate, chocolate. And she's like this is how much? And the guy's like we're not going to sell it to you. This has been in her house, her family, for generations and she needs a sign from God.

Katie Reynolds

So the bird poops on her face Because there's a pigeon in this house. There's multiple pigeons in the house. There are a lot of animals in this house windows are just wide open they are. Well, they don't have screens, so just animals everywhere. Yep and uh, pigeon poops on her and that's considered good luck, which I don't really think that's good luck, I feel like that's. Someone told that to their friend once to console them when they were pooped on we've had this conversation before, this conversation before and it has happened to me before oh yeah, I've been pooped out by bird, too, um lucky.

Katie Reynolds

So yeah, so lucky.

Lydea Irwin

So they they agree to sell her the house. They give her the keys right away and she's just like, oh, the realtor likes you this is the attorney or the banker?

Katie Reynolds

yeah, I don't know if they're the bank or where where they are, but question mark yeah, martini likes you yeah, and so so they give her the keys.

Lydea Irwin

The the realtor calls her.

Katie Reynolds

Uh, she calls her friend she's like I just bought a house.

Lydea Irwin

And patty's like oh, you're nuts yeah, she's like what do you think this is a mistake? And I was like I'm already, it's already done.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, yeah, it's like patty, you, you're responsible for this. Yeah, you did tell her she was going to be an empty shell of a person if she didn't make some change, and she made a change.

Lydea Irwin

She made a big change yeah.

Katie Reynolds

I spent this whole time wondering like how she was dealing with immigration. But you know, whatever, no idea.

Lydea Irwin

Was it a bigotry? Hold back? Yes, because it was post 9-11. So yeah, no, just immigration is always.

Katie Reynolds

It's a nightmare, that's true. Once upon a time it was an immigration attorney. She was on vacation, I.

Lydea Irwin

So she's not even an immigrant, yet she's just overstaying her visa.

Katie Reynolds

Yes, yeah, she probably had a few months and yeah, yeah, it's total overstay so anyway, uh, patty asks her if she's met him yet.

Lydea Irwin

Who the guy you're going to meet? Oh jeez, well no. And then there's a huge storm that happens right after this, and instead of closing, the shutters.

Katie Reynolds

I don't know if it would have mattered.

Lydea Irwin

Well, but she just leaves the windows wide open, all of them. I Hides under the covers. There's an owl in her house yeah, poor owl.

Katie Reynolds

He looks so stressed out because it's a storm and then her washing machine explodes.

Lydea Irwin

It's like flying up in the air. They maybe overdid it a little bit on the electrocution the storm was a little ridiculous but it's on top of her. She counts the lightning to thunder. They maybe overdid it a little bit on the electrocution.

Katie Reynolds

The storm was a little ridiculous, but it's on top of her. She counts the lightning to thunder, and it's there.

Lydea Irwin

I don't think anyone would question that the storm was right overhead, it's there. Yeah, the next morning she's hiring contractors.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah Well, Martini comes to check on her.

Lydea Irwin

Oh yeah, he just can walk in because apparently she's not even locking the door. She doesn't officially own the house yet, so the realtor's there. She's got the first of her contractors that she's like interviewing.

Katie Reynolds

How does she know what I mean? I know she's not fluent in Italian, yeah, but she knows enough to get by. How? Where did this happen?

Lydea Irwin

question mark okay, yeah, it's, it's magic, it's movie magic, yeah I mean, I get that most of us took spanish.

Katie Reynolds

It sounds enough like spanish. You can just pick out words, like you can pick out words. But I couldn't have a conversation like where is she learning italian?

Lydea Irwin

in san francisco there's there's even enough words in that are like similar in in English. We steal a lot from the Romance languages, you know? Yeah, I would not feel comfortable.

Katie Reynolds

Not enough to hire a contractor.

Lydea Irwin

No, luckily Martini's there to help translate. So the first guy is real sleazy and hits on her and is basically like just leave the house to me and I will.

Katie Reynolds

He's got a gold chain and everything. The second guy is making booming noises. Yeah, I don't know what's up with him.

Lydea Irwin

There's the third guy. Who's the third guy? Oh, he's basically blind. Yeah, he changes his glasses and walks into a wall.

Katie Reynolds

I've seen this before, not with a contractor, but with someone else who really needed to be able to see to do the job. So this happens.

Lydea Irwin

That didn't work and then the last guy he's worked there before he fixed that thing the flu, I think. Maybe he's in the chimney or whatever it is, he's fixed that before and therefore, and he's got a crack team of polish workers, yeah for some reason I mean question mark. But so she hires him. They, they start working. The polish boys come in.

Katie Reynolds

They're gonna take down the wall I want more information about these three characters that we spend so much time with. One is a literature professor. We really don't learn anything about him. One is our friend powell yeah, who's like young. Yeah, we don't really know a lot about him, no. And then the third guy apparently has some little crush on francesca but we learn nothing about him.

Lydea Irwin

The entire time. I I learned their names because they were in imdb.

Katie Reynolds

Oh, I only learned, powell, that's it.

Lydea Irwin

Right, yeah, like yeah, one of them doesn't even have a picture. One of the actors. It's just okay. I'm assuming those are the Polish guys, because they have Polish names.

Katie Reynolds

The wall collapses. Oh I love it. No one checks Like is this a load-bearing wall? No one asked that question. Like is this a load-bearing wall? No one asked that question, no, no. Well, the guy said it would be okay. Oh yeah, but then it's hilarious how they're just laughing. Ha, ha, ha.

Lydea Irwin

Well they made it out safely in the wall. Well, they wanted to take the wall down, true.

Katie Reynolds

And well, we don't know that the floor fell in. I suppose that it wasn't exactly load-bearing caused a lot more chaos, yes, than we would have expected because it is a stone wall, yeah, as opposed to a dry wall, right?

Lydea Irwin

not just putting a well, there's, there's like some plaster over the. There's plaster, yep yeah, they were just taking the stones out. One by one and then, well, that just all fell.

Katie Reynolds

That went faster than they anticipated, yep so yeah, oh, and that's when she learns how to say holy s**t and polish yes we have her neighbor who I guess has an olive farm I have no idea what the neighbor neighbor's name is. Nope, not a clue. Olive guy, he has a family that we meet. No idea what any of their names are, except kiara, there's, there's neighbor, mom neighbor grandma.

Lydea Irwin

I just have her as Nona Neighbor Olive girl. That's the daughter Mm-hmm. Some other farmhands we don't know Question mark?

Katie Reynolds

He's got that. Who's the handsome guy who's married? Yeah, who's he Question mark? How does he know Catherine?

Lydea Irwin

Apparently he's working on the olive farm.

Katie Reynolds

They all know, catherine, because Catherine knows everybody, I guess she's invited to dinner, and so is Catherine. Catherine's duck lady. Yes, catherine is duck lady or hat lady. I love how okay. So Granny spends all day crying. Oh, and she spends all day crying because she had an internet boyfriend, yep From Ecuador, yep From Ecuador, and she finally had to tell him how old she was. And now he's ghosting her, she catfished some guy on the internet she did, who was in fairness, probably also catfishing her.

Lydea Irwin

Oh, I'm sure, let's be real, let's be real.

Katie Reynolds

But now she's just crying all the time. She's hilarious, the grandmother's great.

Lydea Irwin

She, she's hilarious. I the grandmother's great.

Katie Reynolds

She's flirting with this very attractive, francesca, yeah, and he's asking if she's single. Yes, but she's hearing, is she celibate? Catherine picks up what's going on and it's just kind of looking at her like you, absolute moron yeah, she's not asking you.

Lydea Irwin

When the last time you had sex was he's asking if you're single, because he's not and the wife comes over and it's like, oh Yep. Well, we have a conversation with her and Catherine after that where they talk about hats and ice cream. She was, I guess, an actress spotted by a director because she was eating ice cream very messily when she was 16.

Katie Reynolds

It's a very I don't know. It just brought back to mind that Audrey Hepburn moment from Roman Holiday.

Lydea Irwin

Yep, yep, not that she was eating messily, but it was the same sort of like beautiful woman on the stairs with a gelato. Yeah, they have this conversation about how it changed her life and she met this guy and it's great. And then Then there's a big old snake in the house, yeah, and so she calls over our friend Martini.

Katie Reynolds

Snake just straight up disappears.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, we don't know what happened to the snake?

Katie Reynolds

Nope, it's there. It's somewhere Probably in the bed, who knows? He's looking everywhere he can Probably in the bed.

Lydea Irwin

Who knows, he's looking everywhere he can. Then we have the incredibly weird conversation between her and Martini, where he strongly suggests that he has feelings for her, of her, and sleep with her. So she's happy again. Yep, but yeah, that's pretty much what he says. I'll be forced to make love to you and I've never been unfaithful to my wife.

Katie Reynolds

As Chris said, that's a strange thing to say.

Lydea Irwin

Stop being sad, because I'll be forced to make love to you and I would break my wife's heart. Then he just says I've never been you and I would break my wife's heart, he said.

Katie Reynolds

And then he just says I've never been unfaithful to my wife. Yeah, yeah, it's bizarre, that's bizarre.

Lydea Irwin

There's a lot of voiceovers in this movie it's.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, she should just be writing a book with it. I'm assuming that's what she's doing. I assume that too, there's aunt mary aka the virgin mary mary who's everywhere? Everywhere. She's not cath Including over her bed.

Lydea Irwin

Over her bed. It's in the like bed frame. Yeah.

Katie Reynolds

Well, she's a indifferent Methodist and she doesn't really see herself converting to Catholicism, but you know she's enjoying the pageantry of it and there's a lot of pageantry. It's all of a sudden Christmas.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, I never really pictured Italy covered in snow outside of, like the alps, and I, realizing I'm not, I don't know where tuscany is. It's in the mountains, is there?

Katie Reynolds

a lot of snow in italy. I have no idea. I don't know. I actually don't know people who know we could just google no, no, I want.

Lydea Irwin

I want people to tell me Let us know on like Instagram or Facebook or something. Be like hey, yeah, no, that's, there's snow in Italy. It's common.

Katie Reynolds

You're a dumb***, but let's qualify as snow here, because what I consider snow not everyone considers snow.

Lydea Irwin

This is not New England snow.

Katie Reynolds

Not even New England. No, New England is a joke when it comes to snow.

Lydea Irwin

This is not upstate New York snow, not even New England.

Katie Reynolds

No, new England is a joke when it comes to snow. This is not upstate New York snow, yeah, thank you. Thank you, all right. Yeah, this is not like effect snow for sure, if you're not getting several feet at a time.

Lydea Irwin

No, but this isn't even New England snow. This is like this is a gentle.

Katie Reynolds

It's very pretty yeah. Like you could actually enjoy it, and then it's probably gone the next day. Yeah, exactly, but there's an outdoor nativity. That olive girl, as you put it, is there and she is mary having to hold the baby she's making faces at, at polish boy, oh yeah, yeah, they are yeah, they're very cute.

Katie Reynolds

They're adorable. Just eyes at each other. From across the room, martini appears with his family, so we actually see that he has family, his children, and he has brought her a statue of saint lorenzo, who's apparently the patron saint of cooking. Is what he tells her goats? Well, that's possible too.

Lydea Irwin

That's also possible but it's, it's supposed to be like good for her, he's, he's if he, if she prays to him, it'll be helpful. Now, at one point she does say is this when she was? Having the breakdown earlier, or yeah, she say she wants a wedding and a I think that was right before, when the snake was in the house.

Katie Reynolds

Okay, she, yeah, we should probably mention that yeah I remember it, it did not end up in my notes no she she said she wanted a wedding at the house, yep, and she wanted a family. And she wanted Yep, and she wanted a family at the house and she wanted people to cook for. Yes, yes, that's why he brought her the statutes. Yeah, okay, that makes sense yeah, yeah.

Lydea Irwin

So she realizes she has people that she can cook for. So she starts cooking for the Polish boys.

Katie Reynolds

The contractors yes.

Lydea Irwin

Yes, and the Italian manager of the Polish boys, yeah, and italian manager.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, and the grandmother from next door comes over and helps, like teaches her how to cook which you know gives her something to do, and it's nice and she's doing like big old like these are gorgeous fancy feasts these are not casual meals.

Lydea Irwin

These are like break out the china kind of yeah many, many dishes the table is just two slats of wood over, uh, some sawhorses, because she doesn't have any furniture. She does what does she? She also said divorce should kill you. Oh, and there was. While she was having the breakdown, one of the things martini said was there's in in the alps, there's really high mountains and they wanted to put a train from one place to another place it was vienna to um florence, maybe anyway, vienna to somewhere, and it was too high.

Lydea Irwin

But they built the tracks even though there wasn't a train that existed yet. That could make it. Yeah, but they, they wanted it to happen, so they built the tracks and they knew the train would come. So, yeah, so that's, that's just something important to mention. For later. She goes to watch george of the jungle in italian. That was wild. The dubbing is really weird. Yep, she goes with polish boy and polish boy sees olive girl and he ends up leaving to go sit by allish olive girl and she leaves.

Katie Reynolds

he said, oh well, yeah, she, she strongly suggests that he should go sit by. Yes, and so she does head out and she runs into Catherine.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah.

Katie Reynolds

Who's at her apartment, I guess?

Lydea Irwin

Yes, With Zeus the painter.

Katie Reynolds

Oh boy.

Lydea Irwin

Who is there in a Speedos? Yeah, I call it a speedo, small briefs that's generous. And Catherine is there in some feathers it's a.

Katie Reynolds

It's a. Look. Yeah, zeus is apparently an artist. He's painting her portrait uh-huh while staying with her, and he's not a very good artist.

Lydea Irwin

Catherine says but he's good enough. Yeah, catherine calls francesca sad and boring. Yes, stop being sad and boring. She's also a bit of a prude, she's not handling.

Katie Reynolds

This is also a weird situation to walk in on.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, but I mean like everything is covered and Catherine's clearly cool with it.

Katie Reynolds

But just a lot of feathers and velvet. It's a lot happening. If you weren't expecting it, you'd be like, oh, okay. I definitely would not expect to walk in on that, just a random no, but I feel like Catherine is to walk in on that no, just a random no, but I feel like Catherine is one of those people that you should just expect anything.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, and that is a thing that I would probably expect from her Like yeah, okay, especially when she said she was getting her portrait painted, I was like she's going to be naked?

Katie Reynolds

Oh yeah, absolutely. And to our surprise, she was not actually naked.

Lydea Irwin

No, Everything was tastefully covered. I was actually shocked With feathers.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, she tells her to work on the house and forget about it. Yeah, forget about the house, like everything.

Lydea Irwin

Well, stop trying Pretty much. Because when she was hunting for ladybugs, she could never find ladybugs.

Katie Reynolds

But when she just fell asleep in the grass.

Lydea Irwin

She woke up covered in ladybugs, little girls, bands. So so stop stop looking for love. Love will come to you when you stop looking for it, which is bulls**t thing to say. Don't tell that to your single friends. I hate people to me. She goes traveling.

Katie Reynolds

She goes to rome because she needs replacement part for chandelier. Yeah, and she gets harassed by some. She has three, three men laborers essentially just following her, I think yeah, I don't know what exactly they're doing, but they're dressed up in like coveralls and stuff yep, aprons and things so.

Lydea Irwin

So they're, they're kind of harassing her. They follow her for a long time. So she just finds a guy, just yeah, links arms with him, gives him a kiss and says oh, I've been looking for you everywhere.

Katie Reynolds

And then the guys leave and she's like okay, thanks, bye yeah, and of course he's just kind of like uh, you were the one who grabbed me yeah he can help her out because, uh, he doesn't exactly know where this place is that she's looking for, but his cousin has a shop that might be able to help. It's three hours away or two if he drives fast or one if he drives really fast.

Lydea Irwin

This is marcello. Yeah, we find out that green means go and yellow means also go, but be careful. And red is a suggestion, it's a suggestion yep, he's got a cute little convertible.

Katie Reynolds

yep, she just runs off with this guy. This guy who she just meets on the street, who's in a early 2000s suit Technically nice at the time I just hate the baggy. I hate the baggy. Look yeah.

Lydea Irwin

I hate it so much.

Katie Reynolds

Baggy pants, the saggy baggy sad suit. No, just can't.

Lydea Irwin

The jacket fit nice.

Katie Reynolds

No, it was a huge jacket. I mean it fit for how it was supposed to fit, but it's one of the wide. Yeah, yeah, so they go to feelings on the saggy baggy, sad. Look, it's his family's bar. Yes, his whole family is there, actually they're having dinner uh, nieces running around yeah, the pieces there is an antique store, but yep, no, he would never have the pieces.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, the niece wants more ice cream. She's already had two, but you know she can have a third the funkels there, so of course she can have a third.

Katie Reynolds

They have limoncello. Yep, there's a kitten on the beach there's a kitten under hiding under a beach chair. Yeah, we'll go with that. I can't remember what exactly. There we go. Beach lounger yeah. Then he suggests that, no, the kitten wants.

Lydea Irwin

And he flirts with her and she laughs at him.

Katie Reynolds

It's so heavy handed it comes off as creepy. Yeah, yeah.

Lydea Irwin

Well it's, it's so stereotypical.

Katie Reynolds

That's what she laughs about.

Lydea Irwin

She's like ha ha ha, that's what every American woman thinks an Italian man would say.

Katie Reynolds

And she offends him a little bit, and then she says something and he's like and that's, every italian man thanks, every american woman asks him to sleep with oh, it's basically what she does she's nervous, I'm nervous.

Lydea Irwin

I haven't slept with anyone for a long time, but I'd like you to help me with that. It's such a contrived, yeah, yeah they, they kiss turns into nighttime somehow, while they're kissing, even though it was the middle of the day before.

Katie Reynolds

There's a lot of statuary and paintings in whatever room they're in.

Lydea Irwin

I think it's the antique store.

Katie Reynolds

Oh, and then when they wake up, they're in a completely different place. Yeah, they're in his bedroom.

Lydea Irwin

They've migrated. He's singing, the kitten is there. He invites her to come visit that weekend. She's like totally, but guess who comes that weekend? Freaking patty it's patty, oh patty we love you, but not in this moment right, bad timing, bad timing yep and patty is very pregnant at this point. We also find out that her girlfriend, long-term girlfriend left her, took off, decided she didn't want to be a mom after all.

Lydea Irwin

So, catherine heigl, I just that's, it's just wow after all that time yeah really this is the moment, okay so she calls marcello and they're trying to figure out a time to meet up. And that weekend's no good and that one's no good yeah, they'll figure it out.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, he's just busy patty fits right in she's pointing out the creepy italian trees. Yep, her words. Yep, they've got hot water in the toilet. Yep, line must have been crossed somewhere.

Lydea Irwin

It's steaming uh, I mean, if you want to give your ass a facial, I guess it's an ash ash, ash yeah anyway, but the faucet is dripping. Yeah, the faucet has meaning her life was dried, but now maybe there's water coming through the faucet.

Katie Reynolds

There are too many garbage symbols in this movie.

Lydea Irwin

There's a lot of symbolism in this movie. Olive Girl and Polish Boy are there. They're sleeping in her bed. Well, they're not sleeping.

Katie Reynolds

They're doing other things in her bed. They're heavily making out. It's going to progress. It's in her bed.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, she's not thrilled with that. They making out it's going to progress. It's in her bed. She's not thrilled with that. They don't have any other place to be. But she takes them to a festival, a flag throwing festival. Not what I expected when I heard flag throwing festival. I was thinking like javelins for some reason, really.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, I didn't know what to expect, but I was not thinking like a javelin type thing.

Lydea Irwin

He was like like oh, I can throw them just as good as any italian man. It's color guard competition. It's just like a color guard thing. Yeah, but okay it's just somehow a competition which I didn't understand. I didn't understand how the competition.

Katie Reynolds

It looked like it was choreographed like this was deliberately, like you would. You wouldn't just, you know, randomly whip a flag over someone's head. Yeah, the way this happens but they've I don't know.

Lydea Irwin

And then he, he does a solo and he throws it up really high in the air and he gets.

Katie Reynolds

Just, he does a backflip and gets distracted by olive girl because she shouts I love you and then gets conked on the head so the reason he's doing this is because he is trying to prove that he is more italian than italian men. Yes, and that way, olive Girl's father, olive man we really don't know his name will approve of him and allow the two of them to get married. They are both very young.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, patty goes into labor. Oh, no, no, no. So she's out with the Olive family. They're collecting mushrooms. They're doing something? It's collecting mushrooms, they're doing something. It's not olives, they're just picking things off the ground. I don't know, and one of the olive workers is like oh look, you can see her house from here, yeah, and she looks, and oh, it's Marcello. It's talking to Patty. What's Marcello doing? Don't leave, she chases after him.

Katie Reynolds

Like an absolute nut. She is just running like she's never run before and she slides down the hill and, oh, she misses him. And then she goes to talk to patty. Why didn't you make him stay? Well, he was, he had to leave, I don't know. Here's where he's going. He left you a letter. She reads the letter oh, I had a dream about you in a white dress. Blah, blah, blah.

Lydea Irwin

And then patty goes into labor yeah, she's like why didn't you, you know, pretend to go into labor or something? She's like I didn't have to pretend, oh, I'm in labor fastest delivery ever yeah, we don't actually see that happening, it's just there's a baby like cut to the next scene.

Katie Reynolds

There's a baby alexandra who we are calling alessandra because italy yeah, doesn't matter. The baby's name is actually Alexandra. Francesca immediately calls her Alessandra.

Lydea Irwin

Yep, different names. That's okay. The construction is finished. Yeah, it's kind of emotional. The smoking guy is sad, the one that has a crush on her. He's all done up in his suit. He's like very cute yeah.

Katie Reynolds

They're taking pictures.

Lydea Irwin

They put up a plaque that says poland.

Katie Reynolds

In italian I didn't, or in polish it's, I'm assuming, italian doesn't say poland no no, I'm assuming it's italian, because the alphabet, but I don't know. No idea, I didn't quite know, unless they were just trying to say like your house is like home to us, or something. I don't.

Lydea Irwin

That's kind of what I was getting.

Katie Reynolds

But what's sad is that these people have all been together.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah.

Katie Reynolds

They're leaving her now. She had tried to adopt them as her family. Yeah, and they're. You know? Labor.

Lydea Irwin

So, they're moving on to their next job, that's right, she's lonely again, even Patty, patty, she's lonely again, even even patty, and patty has the baby and she doesn't have anybody. And her books finally show up, yep, and she sees a picture of her and her ex, which is interesting because we've never actually seen the ex's face.

Katie Reynolds

We still don't see the.

Lydea Irwin

No, it's like the side side, back of his head, yep and the picture moves and she's having memories and she decides I need a white dress and she smashes the vase, so she doesn't smash the vase. Yet Not yet. Not yet, oh, later, later, later. So she buys a white dress.

Katie Reynolds

Catherine gets her the white dress. Yes, because she needs it.

Lydea Irwin

She goes to Positano, which is where Marcello lives, and we find out oh, he got a new girlfriend.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, and thankfully he was not cheating on anybody at any point in time.

Lydea Irwin

Oh, I definitely wrote he's married question mark?

Katie Reynolds

I was, yeah, I was upset about that because he calls this other woman darling, but no, we find out that she took too freaking long.

Lydea Irwin

She was busy, he was busy, there was just never a good time. It clearly wasn't working out. Yeah, there I'm on the apps and you meet someone. You're like, oh, let's set up a date. And it's like, okay, well, that fell through, okay, we'll try and do it again. Okay, once you hit four times and it hasn't quite worked out, you're just gonna go. Well, clearly, the universe is telling us this is not right, meant to be good luck. Yep, and that's kind of what marcello did. He's like look, we tried.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, you're amazing, I like you a lot, but you're there and I'm here and yeah, and there was no way that was gonna work anyway, because they live so far apart as it is.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, yeah like three hours three hours normal driving. She goes back home she has her breakdown well, the crazy blonde is in the fountain first. Yes, katherine's in the fountain. For some reason she sends Martini in there because it's like in the movie, and the guy goes and gets her out of the movie and I don't know why that was in there other than so everyone is having.

Katie Reynolds

Everyone's having a bad time right now. So Catherine Zeus just left her Yep, so she's having a moment.

Lydea Irwin

Catherine's having a bit of a breakdown.

Katie Reynolds

We have Powell and Chiara. Yep have powell and kiara. Yeah, they're sobbing or she's sobbing or whatever in the garden because they can't get married.

Lydea Irwin

no, it's not gonna work this is where she flips out. She throws the vase. Yeah, when she hears the girl, olive girl, crying, she's like okay, let's see what we can do to help the young love. Like she kind of calms down a little bit, she goes and she takes the kids to all of family.

Katie Reynolds

I don't. I don't know how I would have felt about this random stranger inserting herself. I mean, they've known her for a little while, but she really is an outsider inserting herself in their family business it's been a few months.

Lydea Irwin

But so paul asks for a blessing and he says no, you have nothing, you don't even have family.

Katie Reynolds

And she's like he's my fan also, nona, is speaking up and saying you know, I had true love. It's not this impossible thing I had it. We love grandma, so she's in support of the children too. They end up getting married, they do. Dad likes the wedding cake yep, it's. It's a nice little event at the villa that Francesca bought.

Lydea Irwin

She runs into Martini, who's of course there because everyone's there, and he's like look, you got your wish, you got a wedding.

Katie Reynolds

You got a family.

Lydea Irwin

It's everything you could want.

Katie Reynolds

It's not what she thought she was going to get, but it's what she asked for. That's right. She sits on a chair. She kind of covers her eyes. She's like, oh, I don't know if it's woe, is me or just, oh, I think it's just been a long day. It's been a lot, yeah, because the wedding is still going on.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, so she's there and someone comes over and asks her an italian like oh, I'm looking for the.

Katie Reynolds

The american author who I heard lives here yep, and she's like oh well, oh well, you found her, that's me.

Lydea Irwin

And he picks a lady bug off of her arm and says oh you, you wrote a nasty review for one of my books. It pushed me to be better in my next book.

Katie Reynolds

But I heard you've lived here and he was in the area Wanted to stop by he's. He's a cutie patootie. He is a cutie patootie.

Lydea Irwin

And yeah, that's we see later that he's there and there's a happy moment.

Katie Reynolds

It's like some sort of other party. Yep, they're all together.

Lydea Irwin

In the end.

Katie Reynolds

So many sunflowers.

Lydea Irwin

Lots of sunflowers.

Katie Reynolds

So many sunflowers.

Lydea Irwin

Speaking of Katie at the end of each movie, I like to ask you to rate the movie on a scale of one to five emojis. This week, we're going with the sunflower emoji.

Katie Reynolds

I know we didn't stress it, but there were a lot of sunflowers in this movie, so there are sunflowers at the very beginning in a bouquet at the book opening it opens with it. Yeah.

Lydea Irwin

And there's follow the sunflower through At the gain-away thing.

Katie Reynolds

At the gain-away On the postcard there's a sunflower. When she gets to the villa, it's a field of sunflowers it's sunflowers.

Lydea Irwin

Everywhere are sunflowers like. Is tuscan you known for sunflowers, or is that just a movie thing? I'm don't know, we'll find out. Uh, let us know if you know about sunflowers in tuscan because we are so over this, we're not googling it, okay so, kitty, how many sunflower emojis are you going to rate under the tuscan sun?

Katie Reynolds

I'm gonna give this as a movie. Yep, okay, we're clarifying here. Yeah, I'm gonna give it a 2.5. It's fine, it's watchable. But as she says at the beginning of the movie, like oh, I couldn't relate to the main character, okay, I can't relate to this character, especially now that I find out she's supposed to be my age.

Lydea Irwin

Are you kidding me?

Katie Reynolds

younger, are you kidding me? So I feel like this would be a really enjoyable movie for people who are women, who are much older than us. Yeah, and there was a. There were a string of movies at the time that were close by that. It was all the same sort of theme.

Lydea Irwin

You pray, love kind of.

Katie Reynolds

There were some other ones too.

Lydea Irwin

Divorcee runs off and discovers herself, kind of thing.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, a lot of those. I don't know, it's just not for me. And this one I spent a lot of time being like where is this going? Because when she met Marcello I thought we are more than we're like halfway or more through this movie. If this guy's supposed to be the love interest of what are we doing here? Yeah, but uh, then I realized for sure, this is not a rom-com.

Lydea Irwin

so I don't, I don't know so how would you rate it as a rom-com?

Katie Reynolds

it's not a rom-com. I'm gonna give it a one because we can't do zero, because it's not a rom-. No, this is just a story of this woman's life as she's recovering from a really s****y experience.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, I'm going to give it a three as a movie. It's also very long. It is long, it's almost two hours.

Katie Reynolds

It's almost two hours yeah.

Lydea Irwin

I enjoyed it. I didn't feel like it dragged Like for a long movie. It didn't feel that long. It felt like it kept moving. I didn't know where it was going.

Katie Reynolds

No, because again, I was expecting rom-com, which generally has like a romance, and I felt like I felt in my Big Fat Greek Wedding Like this is about her story, not about the romance.

Lydea Irwin

Yeah, there's certainly not a formula that you're expecting to tell you where it's going. Yeah, I enjoyed it, though. It was like a good movie there was, it wasn't problematic, it wasn't like. It was just like oh, okay, what I what? I recommend this to someone, probably if they were a middle-aged woman who was unhappy in their marriage or going through a divorce.

Katie Reynolds

Something has happened. Maybe their children have all grown up and gone away or something like that. That is the age frame that we're talking about here. It's really. And again.

Lydea Irwin

I think it's because our generation is just a little delayed in the adulting-ness. That like, maybe I still feel like because my mom was 35 and she had kids. I'm like we have friends that have kids and it's. I think it's just. It just seems off it does.

Katie Reynolds

Yeah, I really feel like this is better suited for women in their 50s and 60s yeah or or mid to late 40s.

Lydea Irwin

I would even go as young as mid to late 40s, unless something really awful has happened. Divorce yeah. Yeah, but yeah, I don't, I don't know it's a fantasy of oh, my husband leaves me, I can run away to Italy and be happy in the villa, right, but it is. It's an enjoyable movie. It's, it's not. It's not bad, no, no, it's not bad. It no, it's not bad. I'm going to say it is not a rom-com.

Katie Reynolds

No.

Lydea Irwin

So one for rom-com.

Katie Reynolds

That's good If you're expecting romance in the movie I mean there is, but it's not something that's lasting. It's not her.

Lydea Irwin

Well, no, she has one date with Marcelo Wow.

Katie Reynolds

Is that really romance? Well, it's set up. She could really she thinks in that moment she could really build a relationship with him. He's very charming. They keep trying to make plans. I think in that moment, yeah, absolutely that's romance. It's just not lasting. It's a slice of life movie.

Lydea Irwin

It's not a romance movie. Yeah, so I'm with you. I think we're all on the same page here. Yep, so with that. Oh, chris gave it also a 2.5 slash, one where we're really all on the same page.

Katie Reynolds

Chris qualified too that as a guy yeah, this is not a guy. This is not a guy movie at all.

Lydea Irwin

This from the man who watches a lot of rom-coms, which is funny because this was recommended to us by my friend vern, who is a guy, and it has been one of his favorite movies for a long time.

Katie Reynolds

Interesting, did he say why I?

Lydea Irwin

don't know. Well, we'll have to ask vern and we'll, you know, maybe make an addendum to the next one the next time we record him. Yeah, well, ask vern. Vern, why did I know you're listening to this? So what makes under the tuscan sun one of your favorite movies? Let us know all right.

Katie Reynolds

So more than that, because it I can argue, I can see how people would really enjoy this movie. Why is that rom-com? Yeah?

Lydea Irwin

yeah, fern fernson fernson rom-com guy. He's a listener out in california. Thanks for listening, all right all right, so next week.

Katie Reynolds

Oh, we gotta give the actual rating, so it's a listener out in california. Thanks for listening, barry. All right. All right, so next week. Oh, we gotta give the actual rating, so it's a 2.6 repeating, 2.6 repeating we're doing well.

Lydea Irwin

Allergies yay, we're a little out of it 2.6 repeating as a movie and one as a rom-com. Yeah, fair. So with that, that's our show. Thank you so much for listening. Please rate, subscribe and review on your favorite podcast provider. If you like our podcast, please tell your friends. You can find us online on Facebook, instagram or on our website at mademepodcastcom. You can also email us your movie recommendations and tell us why you like them and why they're a rom-com at mademepodcast, at gmailcom.

Lydea Irwin

Next time we're going to be watching the netflix movie irish wish. It's real hard to say.

Katie Reynolds

It's so hard to say so join us for irish you next time.