La Dolce Villa

The Italians welcome and support productions, like this one, that advertise their place in the best way. Landscapes, Villages, Food, Warm human relationships, at their best. Foreign visitors, usually busy businessmen and cut off from the warmth of everyday life, finally find their love in the cinematic representation of a country's excellence and its people. As for the film, it was a pleasant and comforting entertainment that also included the whole recipe; the daughter with the worried-ready-for-love father, the local grandmothers at the fountain, the handsome young cook (Italian food and wine is a must) and the local beautiful Italian mayor available for love. I admit the Italians and bow to their timeless skill in attracting scripts that advertise their country in the best way. !!

From the trailer you can already tell the story and feeling you will get from this movie. It is a cute charming movie for the whole 'familia'. Sure, with a foreseeable storyline and few bumps on the path of realism or logic, but overall the story checks out. The characters and actors fit quite well and manage to attract interest, they are a bit cliché - ok a lot of cliché, still, they are charming. This feels like a short and sweet Italian vacation at the countryside. Dont watch if you feel already grumpy before watching - let the grumpy character be the mysterious man that left the villa. This is a movie to relax and feel a bit of dolce far niente. And I typically avoid spoilers in my reviews at all cost but... here I will make a tiny exception to the rule: make sure to have a warm pizza ready for the end of this cute movie. Buon appetito!

Overall, it was a sweet family movie. First of all cinematography is very good, like all Italian movies it makes you fall in love with Italy. The main focus in this movie for me was the relationship between father and daughter, I love how they showed their dynamics and the development of their relationship and trust between them during the movie. The movie looks like the very good advertisement for Italy, its food and people, they really focused on those aspects. This is movie is also about the second love story in the middle ages, also Giovanni and Olivia were soo cute together such a cute chemistry between them.

Well.. I am wondering if there will come a time, when Netflix movie will be more high quality?

It seems to me most of the movies made are made to have it as a backdrop while cooking, which is too bad. Probably we are to blame cause we watch them and create demand.

This one in particular is actually a nice plot with a lot of potential due to popular romanticised reality of foreigners buying 1 euro houses in Italia, but it is again made so cheesy and corny and lacks depth or quality acting. Feels very superficial. Don't get me wrong, it still is a nice backdrop, mostly due to surroundings and location, but otherwise lacks depth heavily. It is too bad, cause all these films seem half-done, and like my parents used to tell me my whole life, getting things half done is worse than not doing them. I must agree.

I started watching this, but couldn't stomach seeing it to the end. I'm American living in Europe for 55 years. I speak Italian and other languages, and visit Italy frequently. This movie is typical naive American cliché kitsch. The dialogue is full of American "New Speak" slang and cultural references that hardly anyone in Italy understands - I have trouble with it too. The protagonist is not there to admire and embrace millennia of culture, but rather, to spread the American obsession with turning everything into a business enterprise. I can't imagine any European giving this movie the thumbs-up. I can't.