Actual father and son Liam Neeson
and Micheál Richardson play a
burnt-out artist and his art gallery manager son, who go to Italy to do up the
Tuscan house they have never got rid of in the years since the accidental death
of their respective wife and mother, in order to be able to sell it. While
there, the son starts developing a romance with a local woman, and the father
and son bond, coming to terms with unresolved issues from the death of the wife
and mother.
It's inevitable that parallels must be drawn between the outline of the story and the tragic death of Neeson's wife Natasha Richardson back in 2009, and to an extent this lends a depth to the film that its otherwise off-the-shelf plot does not deserve. Neeson is as great as usual when he is persuaded to do something other than butchering criminals, completely commanding the screen, and there are some sweetly funny scenes scattered throughout, but overall it's a stock Richard Curtis derivative with middle-class characters who bemoan being skint yet are never seen to do a stroke of work, and wax lyrical over authentic pasta sauces and limpid sunsets instead.
It's inevitable that parallels must be drawn between the outline of the story and the tragic death of Neeson's wife Natasha Richardson back in 2009, and to an extent this lends a depth to the film that its otherwise off-the-shelf plot does not deserve. Neeson is as great as usual when he is persuaded to do something other than butchering criminals, completely commanding the screen, and there are some sweetly funny scenes scattered throughout, but overall it's a stock Richard Curtis derivative with middle-class characters who bemoan being skint yet are never seen to do a stroke of work, and wax lyrical over authentic pasta sauces and limpid sunsets instead.
5/10
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