An American father travels to Italy - not his favourite place after a bad student experience - to find his estranged independent young daughter, who has bought a one-euro wreck of a villa in a picturesque rural town in this gentle, sunny and pleasantly entertaining Netflix rom-(with a little bit of)com. Of course, it is not just the house that gets renovated, with the father-daughter relationship slowly being repaired and the widowed father tentatively falling for the town's also-conveniently-widowed lady mayor. The location is the real star here, as the film takes every opportunity to show off the gorgeous countryside and the dream-escape-perfect town, complete with its three comedy nonnas who sit at the town square fountain. The film benefits from its focus on the older characters, and there is some polite awareness-raising of outsiders destroying rural communities, but whilst the film treads some similar ground to the 2020 Neeson-and-son vehicle Made In Italy, La Dolce Villa delivers a rom-com triple-threat of pretty scenery, Italian cooking and a good-looking cast. The film flies past with abundant and easy charm in this somewhat more mature, relaxed and less silly take on the genre that is pleasant to watch.
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