From the start, I had many questions about “La Dolce Villa,” directed by Mark Waters, most of which are easy enough to answer but stick in the mind nonetheless. Why, for instance, is the hot middle-aged dad, Eric (Scott Foley), so incredibly mad at his 20-something daughter, Olivia (Maia Reficco), for wanting to purchase a literal villa in Italy for the whopping price of one euro? Why, for that matter, is her Italian so good? Why does Eric seem so convinced the one-euro Italian villa situation is a complete scam, despite, presumably, living in a world that has the internet? Why does everyone in the tiny, remote, fictional town of Montezara, in which this villa can be found, speak extremely accomplished, crystal-clear English? And why does it feel like “La Dolce Villa” is actually funded by an Italian tourist bureau?
The same answer applies to each of these: It’s a Netflix movie, designed expressly for the “Emily in Paris” audience. That is to say, it’s a glossy fairy tale about Americans having lighthearted adventures in Europe, getting into scrapes and falling in love and charming the pants off all the locals.
I’ve basically explained the premise, but let’s add that Eric, a widower, and Olivia are from Ohio. After a couple of bad traveling mishaps in the past, Eric is convinced Italy is the worst place ever. He used to be a chef, but now he’s a corporate guy — yet when he sees the villa, with its capacious broken-down kitchen, the gears start to turn. Olivia is more of a free spirit, and she’s made friends with the mayor of Montezara, Francesca (Violante Placido), who is beautiful, around Eric’s age and full of big plans for her little town. Montezara is populated by an assortment of contractors, nonnas and beautiful young people. Everybody eats pasta and rides bikes through the countryside.
And Montezara seems full of villas available for one euro, part of a movement in Italy to infuse new life into communities that are in danger of becoming ghost towns. (In the movie and in real life, buyers have to commit to renovating the building within a few years, which can cost thousands of dollars but is still much cheaper than buying a house virtually anywhere else.) It’s basically paradise on earth, and of course, Francesca and Eric — being single, middle-age and extremely beautiful — will meet cute and have a series of slapsticky mishaps and you know the rest.
The screenplay for “La Dolce Villa” was written by Elizabeth Hackett and Hilary Galanoy, who penned another real estate-themed Netflix rom-com with a punny title, “Falling Inn Love.” (That one involved an American “winning” a fixer-upper inn located in New Zealand.) The appeal of this kind of film is obvious: It is utterly predictable, lighter than air, sweeter than stracciatella gelato and, if you’re in the right mood, a prompter of serene good will. It’s not a comedy in the sense of having jokes, but a comedy in the sense of not being any other kind of thing. And they all lived happily ever after.
To be honest, the longer I watched “La Dolce Villa,” the more I started to think its very nonsensicality was the charm. It is not aiming for realism, even the kind of realism a previous generation of romantic comedy might have tried to evoke. Eric’s many strange ideas and the Montezarans’ suspiciously American-friendly accents are just odd enough to remind us that this is not real life. It’s fantasy, pure and simple. Make some pasta and settle in.
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