In this acclaimed feel-good romantic drama based on the memoirs of Frances Mayes, Academy Award nominee, Diane Lane, plays Frances, the West-Coast American writer battling against writers block and depression after her marriage breaks down. Her impulsive purchase of a dilapidated villa in Tuscany evolves into a major renovation project and during the course of a year of construction she meets many new people and is accepted by the locals as part of the community. Far away from the rat race of American city life, basking here in under the Tuscan sun, she finds it a wonder that anyone would need romance at all - that's until she meets Marcello.