my mom just kept complaining about how this movie is nothing like the book. never having read the book i have no opinion on that. it had a cute kitten, pretty italian countryside, and some good supporting character parts (her gay best friend pattie and the polish guy named pawel). it wasn't great or anything and the woman's mid-life depression was both depressing and irritating, but for a movie i saw for free i'm not going to complain. well except for the ending which was contrived and stupid. i could complain about that. plus the platitudes and the culture stereotypes. and the fellini references. heh. and i'm not a huge diane lane fan. neither do i have anything against her though. she does have nice cheekbones. this movie is relatively unremarkable in the end though. it's not bad. it's not great. it's kind of useless.