- Title: La Dolce Villa
- IMDb: link
In what could easily been released on the Hallmark Channel, La Dolce Villa is a perfectly fine example of a made for home video tale involving overprotective single dad Eric (Scott Foley) traveling to Italy to try and prevent his unfocused daughter Olivia (Maia Reficco) from buying a rundown villa in a small village with plans to restore it. While there, he falls for the town’s mayor Francesca (Violante Placido) beginning his first real romantic relationship with a woman since the death of his wife.
Foley and Placido turn out to have pretty good chemistry as the film is largely about Eric opening his heart again not only to her but to new experiences. Reficco gets a potential love interest in a local chef (Giuseppe Futia), who her father also befriends, but her arc is more about honoring her mother’s dying wishes, repairing her relationship to her father, and finding her place in the world.
Filmed in Rome, eastern Lazio, and Tuscany, the settings are put to good use in both the local flavor and the food (which has an increasingly important aspect to the script). The script by offers up the expected contrivances and challenges both in the renovation and in Eric and Francesca’s relationship before offering, as guaranteed by any film from this genre, a happy ending for all. We also get Simone Luglio as the do-it-all handyman, and Luisa De Santis, Nunzia Schiano, and Lucia Ricalzone as three elderly women in the town who Eric eventually wins over.
La Dolce Villa is exactly what you would expect from the trailer. Foley still has enough charm to carry a film like this and I was impressed by Maia Reficco who I have not seen much of other than in a relatively small role in 2022’s Do Revenge.
Watch the trailer
