'La Dolce Villa' Review: Scott Foley Will Buy That For A Dollar

I started Italian lessons on Duo Lingo last month. It’s half of my heritage. And, after all the years I spent studying French and Latin in school, it felt easier to learn than Greek. Sorry, yia-yia! But also, I daydream about taking advantage of the “Buy An Italian Villa For One Euro” deal that gets dusted off during U.S. election years.

I would be so good at living in a small Italian town, you guys. All the nonnas would love me, and I could work on perfecting my Easter Bread recipe among people who would really appreciate it.

Keeping that dream alive means occasionally watching movies I usually wouldn’t. Please don’t ask how many times I’ve watched Under The Tuscan Sun. The other day, I was looking for something to put on in the background and saw Netflix has a new family-friendly “romance” called La Dolce Villa staring Scott Foley (Felicity) in which Gen X Dad (Foley) attempts to dissuade Gen Z Daughter from buying an Italian villa for one Euro.

Spoilers: Dad ends up falling in love with the villa, the town, the town’s mayor, and the villa’s resident goat. Everyone lives happily ever after with an authentic wood-fired pizza oven in the kitchen and the goat in the yard.

Scott Foley is excellent as Eric, the Blandy McBlanderson widowed father of Olivia (Maia Reficco), who announces in an Instagram post that she’s buying an Italian villa for one Euro. Blandy McBlandersons hates taking risks, so Eric rushes off to Italy to talk her out of it.

Anyone who has ever tried to talk a twenty-something out of anything already knows this will be a fruitless endeavor. Not only is Eric unsuccessful in talking her out of it, but he ends up fronting her the money for the renovation deposit and sticking around to make sure the project is completed. Not so much because he believes in it. He’s hoping they’ll be able to flip it, and Olivia will move back home to America when it’s done.

The mayor (Violante Placido) is desperate to raise funds through this one Euro Villa scheme, so the villa she offers Olivia is not quite yet on the registry. But it’s in the best condition of all the buildings she has to show. And the owner, Grumpy Mario, had no relatives, just a goat! And an old bicycle! Who will object?

I would say “the clock is now ticking” on whether or not the renovations will be completed before the people who are going to object reveal themselves. But there’s no immediacy to anything in La Dolce Villa. Perhaps it’s a testament to the idea of il dolce far niente, “the sweetness of doing nothing,” embodied by the three nonnas (all named Antonia) who spend their days sitting in the town square watching the world go by. But it’s really just mediocre writing.

There’s nothing challenging or thought-provoking going on here. Nothing will cause you anxiety or worry over the fate of the characters. And nothing bad happens, unless you count Scott Foley falling off the bicycle. Che orrore!

While the renovations go on, Eric and Mayor Francesca fall for each other over gelato and under the watchful eyes of The Antonias. Any conflicts that arise during the renovations are solved by spending time looking at blueprints and knocking down walls to reveal the perfectly preserved but long-forgotten details.

Eric is there long enough to learn Italian and to come up with an idea to turn the villa into a cooking school where traditional Italian recipes can be taught to … whoever shows up, I guess. I don’t know. The town is very small and doesn’t seem ready to be a hotbed of culinary activity.

In the end, Olivia and Eric almost lose the villa because (of course) Grumpy Mario’s heirs show up and want to claim it as their own. But the Mayor, the nonnas, the town baristas, the young local chef who loves Olivia, and the architect who did the renovations all team up to disprove their claim in the most Italian way possible. Apparently, there are two families from town with the same last names, just spelled slightly differently. Leoni vs Leone. No one has a claim on the villa now except Olivia and her father. La vita è divertente così.

In a quick slideshow, we see how the villa’s kitchen has been transformed and modernized and everyone we’ve met throughout this little story is present to eat pizza in the garden and dance with the villa’s goat to a trance version of the song ‘Nel blu, dipinto di blu,’ which we all know as ‘Volare.’

La Dolce Villa is a not unpleasant way to spend an hour and a half with Scott Foley and dreaming about living in an Italian villa. It’s no Merry Gentlemen, but it will keep you company while you cook up a nice pasta e fagoli.