reviews | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

The new film “You, Me & Tuscany” is what I would call a light romantic comedy, a mostly run-of-the-mill, forgettable two hours.

The upside of this mostly average story and movie are the locations and vistas of Tuscany, Italy, which has been the location of other movies in the past, the most memorable is the Diane Lane film “Under the Tuscan Sun”, released in 2003.

This story has been told many times before: two people, each carrying their own emotional baggage, find themselves in Tuscany under unexpected circumstances. In this case, the main character, Anna, played by Halle Bailey, finds herself in Tuscany, after a small fling with a man she meets at a restaurant, even though she has almost no money, and only because she saw that this man, she met Marco Calvani, is wealthy and his house in Tuscany is empty. Then Anna meets and is attracted to Marco’s brother Micheal, played by Regé-Jean Page, setting the stage for some insane drama at the end of this story.

The Rotten Tomatoes are a correct and predictable 69%, because there is nothing new here, just another run of the mill romatic comedy story. I agree with this rating and do not recommend this movie.

The new movie “One Life” starring Anthony Hopkins as Sir Nicholas Winton is another World War II story that I am surprised has not been a major film in the past. Nicholas Winton was a young London broker who visited Prague Czechoslovakia in December 1938 right before the Nazis were about to invade and take over the country.

Winton took it upon himself to rescue hundreds of child refugees in Czechoslovakia from the extreme cold and the oncoming Nazi occupation. His plan was to send all of the children to safety in England, providing them shelter and whenever possible, foster homes. The logistical issues with trying to save the lives of so many Jewish children were overwhelming for Winton and his entire staff and very well depicted in this movie. Despite Winton’s efforts that saved hundreds of lives, he was still haunted by the children he could not save for most of his life.

Some 50 years later, A BBC show, “That’s Life” rescued Winton from his guilt and grief making him a national hero, later knighted by the Queen of England. The “That’s Life” TV show provided an impressive climax to this movie, where Winton stands up and sees an audience filled with the now adults that he saved as children. By saving so many children from the Nazis in 1938, hundreds of thousands of people and their descendants are alive today, only because of what Winton did in 1938. This film will remind everyone of the 1993 movie “Shindler’s List”, directed by Steven Speilberg.

Overall I thought this was a well-done historical movie about an important event during World War II. The acting was outstanding, including Anthony Hopkins, Lena Olin, Helena Bonham Carter, and Matilda Thorpe. My only issue with this movie is that on too many occasions, the film was too slow and boring in telling one of the most important stories of the beginning of World War II.

The second video below is the 60 Minutes story about Winton’s life and also shows the BBC television show, which is the climax of this excellent film.

This time around, I do agree with the high 89% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and do recommend this important historical film