Love and cliches in Tuscany

    Tuscan tourist associations should collect royalties on every ticket sold for You, Me & Tuscany, a glossy romcom in which every meal looks ready for its close-up and the countryside seems blessed by  soft summer light. 

   It's hardly surprising that the movie's Tuscan locations add convivial charm to a contrived story about a professional house sitter (Halle Bailey) who finds her true calling and also love in Italy.

   Bailey stars as Anna, a New York woman who dropped out of culinary school after her mother's death. Bridgerton star Regé-Jean Page joins Bailey for a romance that casts him as the movie's hunk in residence, offering him an opportunity to display his abs to the delight of Anna and a group of touring women who conveniently show up at the vineyard he runs.

     The story begins in a bar in New York where Anna meets Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor). Matteo and Anna trade stories. A foodie at heart, Anna's at loose ends. Matteo left his native Tuscany because he wanted no part of the family restaurant business. He advises Anna to be bold and visit Italy, a trip she once hoped to make with her late mother. 

    Against the advice of her best friend (Aziza Scott), Anna heads for Matteo's Tuscan village only to discover that all the hotels are booked because of a summer festival. Desperate, she decides to crash at Matteo's empty villa. She knows he's not there.

     Once discovered by Matteo's mother and grandmother, Anna avoids being arrested for trespassing by posing as Matteo's fiancee. His family is joyous that the wayward Matteo soon will return.

    In Matteo's absence, Page's Michael, an Englishman by birth, serves as Anna's guide to the village and to the family, which he has become part of. We know Anna and Michael will fall for each other, raising the movie's big problem: How will Anna extricate herself from the lie she's told?

     Additional complications arise when Matteo turns up and learns about Anna's ruse. 

     Working from a screenplay by Ryan Engle, director Kat Coiro forks up a heaping plateful of stereotypes. A robust gardener (Emanuele Pacca) makes like Pavarotti, singing opera while trimming hedges. A local cab driver (Marco Calvani) offers Anna advice, and cousin Francesca (Stella Pecollo) makes winking jokes about her sexual exploits.

    The family patriarch (Paolo Sassanelli) must be convinced that Anna is special before he welcomes her into the tribe. Mom (Isabella Ferrari) fawns over Anna. Scowling grandma (Stefania Casini) remains skeptical.

      Oh hell, why say more? You, Me & Tuscany is a picture postcard masquerading as a movie. Bailey radiates enough warmth to toast marshmallows, and Page exudes the kind of charm that can seem as much directed at the audience as at Anna.

     Judging by the reaction at a preview screening, there's an audience for the mix of comedy, romance, and escape that You, Me & Tuscany serves. I'm not part of it. If you're not, either, join me as I roll my eyes and look for what's next on the menu.

  

       

'Black Bag': a tense tale about trust

  

   Director Steven Soderbergh's Black Bag uses the threatened meltdown of a nuclear plant to add an element of global peril to a movie that, despite such ominous stakes, plays an intriguing game of small ball. 

  Collaborating with screenwriter David Koepp, Soderbergh focuses on the increasingly tense relationships between a group of British intelligence agents, one of whom plans to sell the meltdown malware that could trigger mass casualties and which the British have deemed too dangerous to employ.

  Playing married spies, Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett lead a strong cast that keeps the movie percolating. Everyone's behavior becomes suspect.

   The set-up immediately raises the personal stakes for Fassbender's George. Early on, George learns that his wife's name has appeared on a list of five agents who might be traitors. If she's the culprit, he's going to have to kill her. Will George be more loyal to his wife than to his job? We're not sure. Maybe he's not sure either.

    Blanchett's Katherine seems cagey and intelligent, and it's clear that she and George have carefully worked out the calculus that allows their marriage to continue, even though they sometimes have to reply to each other’s questions by saying "black bag." That means the answer is too secret to divulge.

     Fassbender makes George into a tightly wound professional who keeps us off balance.  To begin his investigation, George stages a dinner party at which the suspected agents (Regé-Jean Page, Tom Burke, and Marisa Abela) and a member of the agency's psych team (Naomie Harris) wind up spilling tea on one another. They reveal enough to bring out festering animosities, but not enough to allow George to identify the culprit. 

    Pierce Brosnan has a nice turn as the head of the agency. He and the rest of the cast embody a drama that bristles with small and large betrayals.

   At times, the movie's many intricate turns get ahead of the audience, but it's not necessary to follow the characters into every cranny Soderbergh explores. A smart screenplay encourages confidence that a satisfying conclusion will be reached. 

    Black Bag includes a skillfully edited polygraph scene that reminds us that truth is difficult to come by in an environment where nearly every one lies. How can they not? It's part of the job.