Under The Tuscan Sun
© James C. Hess
Whenever people who don't know me learn I am a writer, their first verbal response tends to be: No. Really? No. Really, what do you do?
I write, I say again.
It takes a moment, sometimes two, before the truth sinks in and they accept fact. Then comes the questions: How did you get into writing? What are you working on right now? Would you be interested in a great idea for a story?
I politely suffer the questions, then politely explain that I would not be interested in an idea, even a great one, for a story, if for no other reason than legal: If I accept an idea from someone for a story, be it a short story, novel, or screenplay, I am, basically, entering into a contract with them. Which is something I would rather not do.
More often than not this serves to anger the inquiring mind, who assumes my actual reason for not wanting to accept their idea is because I want to steal it.
Actually, I don't, given I have a rather full expandable file of ideas, most of which came from the oddest moments in my life. None of which, interestingly enough, were stolen.
No matter. The damage is done and many a person who has met me, who has learned my profession, has gone on to inform interested parties that I am, in their humble and honest opinion, a snob and bigot of the worst kind, because I don't want to work with them on what would most certainly be the greatest story ever told. (Biblical pun not intended.)
Understand: If the day comes I actually meet someone I want to work with on a writing project I won't have to be asked twice on the matter. But until then, please don't take it the wrong way when I say the idea office is closed, even to the greatest ideas of all time.
The reason for why is easily embodied of late in a film entitled "Under The Tuscan Sun".
Superficially, "Under The Tuscan Sun" is a good idea. Nay, a great idea, and it is one certain to be a sure-fire hit, especially among the female movie-going audience, for the central character is a strong, independent female who make mistakes, learns from those mistakes, makes a few more before gaining an even keel to her life, and lives happily ever after.
Here's the thing: It isn't. Where it should be a solid, hard-hitting success it flops. After all, the central character is played by none other than Diane Lane, who can and often does act circles around the best in the business--so how could a premise such as this go wrong?
