based on Frances Mayes'
1996 memoir of the same name. The film was directed by Audrey Wells
and starred Diane Lane
.
Frances Mayes (Diane Lane
) is a San Francisco writer
whose seemingly perfect life has just taken an unexpected detour
. She finds out at a party that she's hosting, from a writer to whom she had given a bad review of his book, that her husband has been cheating on her. The divorce
leaves her depressed and with seemingly terminal writer's block; her best friend Patti (Sandra Oh
), a lesbian
who is expecting a child, is beginning to think Frances might never recover.
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.
Stop the bus!