Directed by Audrey Wells. Screenplay by Audrey Wells, based on the book by Frances Mayes.

Frances

• And what does that make me? Saint Francesca, patron saint of horny teenagers?
• What is it about love that makes us so stupid?
• What are four walls, anyway? They are what they contain. The house protects the dreamer. Unthinkably good things can happen, even late in the game. It's such a surprise.
• You're right - I got my wish - I got everything I asked for.
• I'll hire the muscular descendants of Roman gods to do the heavy lifting.
• Every day I watch for the old man with the flowers, and I wonder, was he born here? Did he love someone here? Did he lose someone here? He doesn't seem as curious about me, but that's all right. These days I'm something of a loner myself.
• I'd like to make an offer on the house. This is what I can pay, minus the work on the place, and a rental car to drive off a cliff when this all turns out to have been a terrible mistake.
• So I was now the owner of a villa whose lands it would take two oxen two days to plow. Owning neither an ox nor a plow, I'd have to take their word for that.
• Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you. Like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly. You shouldn't have to wake up day after day after that, trying to understand how in the world you didn't know. The light just never went on, you know. I must have known, of course, but I was too scared to see the truth. Then fear just makes you so stupid.
• Stop the bus!
• I still got it! I still got it! I still got it! — Thank God!
• It's market day in Cortona — the piazza is an on-going party — and everyone is invited.
• In Italian, the literal translation of "to give birth" — "dare alla luce" — is: "to give to the light".
• I looked for it and I didn't find it — but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
• The fact that I'm trying to speak Polish in Italy is one of the many suprises around here.

Other

• Martini: Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.
• She's "Sylvia" in La Dolce Vita. She's very good actually.
• Marcello: If you smash into something good, you should hold on until it's time to let go.
• Patti: Life is strange.
• Patti: You know when you come across one of those empty shell people, and you think "What the hell happened to you?" Well there came a time in each one of those lives where they are standing at a crossroads... someplace where they had to decide whether to turn left or right. This is no time to be a chicken-shit, Frances.
• Patti: Jesus, Frances, how do you do it — how do you ever breathe again?
• Katherine: Regrets are a waste of time… they're just the past crippling you in the present.
• Katherine: Ice cream changed my fate.
• Katherine: No matter what happens, always keep your childish innocence. It's the most important thing.
• Grow in every direction you can and things will come your way. Experiment where you want.
• Bramasole!
• Sorry everybody, unscheduled stop.
• Un signo di Dio. A sign from God.
• Marcello: What brings you to Positano?
• There is nothing to regret.
• What can I do?
• What you describe is only in fairy tales.

Dialogue

Taglines

• The only thing more surprising than the chance she's taking... is where it's taking her.
  
• Life offers you a thousand chances... all you have to do is take one.
  

Cast

• Diane Lane — Frances
• Sandra Oh — Patti
• Lindsay Duncan — Katherine
• Raoul Bova — Marcello
• Vincent Riotta — Martini