‘La Dolce Villa’ Netflix Movie Review: A Charming Valentine’s Rom-Com

From Front Row Films & DAE Light Media (Afterlife of the Party, Choose Love), La Dolce Villa is the latest installment of Netflix’s unwavering pursuit of American love abroad created by the writing team of Elizabeth Hackett & Hilary Galanoy. This dynamic duo has written such overseas love stories as Falling Inn Love & A Perfect Pairing while also lending a hand to the Rachael Leigh Cook film, A Tourist’s Guide To Love. 

After setting their previous films down under in Australia & New Zealand, Hackett & Galanoy move their latest romantic entanglement to Italy as they center the story around former chef turned restaurant consultant Eric Field (Scott Foley) as he travels to the small town of Montezara to stop his daughter (Maia Reficco) from buying a “one euro villa” in which she would renovate and restore.

But, of course, Italy and the charm of Montezara have other plans. The restoration extends to Eric’s life as a whole; a life that has vastly changed since he lost his wife to cancer years ago. His passion for things he held so dear, like cooking & romance, have been lost for some time. But once Eric makes a choice to remain in Montezuma to help with his daughter’s renovation, a new life filled with new possibilities starts to unfold. 

Directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls, Mother of the Bride), La Dolce Villa definitely checks the boxes of a straight-to-streaming romance, but in a more charming, smarter, & emotionally deeper way than most of Netflix’s prior efforts in the genre.

While the film may start slow due to the massive amount of throat-clearing and exposition, the story does lock you in: a 20-something woman in search of a life worthy of honoring herself AND her deceased mother, a widowed father trying to help his daughter while taking the time away from his busy life to open up to new things, & a beautiful small town mayor desperately trying to save her town from extinction after her husband/former mayor passed away years ago. These 3 characters give the story meaning & balance while the project backstory allows them to have the necessary time to plausibly create meaningful change.

While someone who has seen quite a few of these films before can see the seams and feel the almost algorithmic manipulation, the beauty of the creation is that you really don’t care. If you are going to click on La Dolce Villa, you also probably enjoy certain types of reality TV escapism; maybe a look at a destination you’ve never traveled to before or a house flip bringing someone’s dream home to life. What if a movie brought pieces of things to life while giving you a rooting interest and a through line worth exploring? That is largely what this is. It’s a warm bath. It’s a tall glass of wine. It’s a good meal you didn’t have to make.

But unlike some of those prior Netflix romances, this one doesn’t dwell on one of those reality show interests too hard (A Tourist’s Guide To Love I’m looking at you) or swing wildly from one distracting background element to another. It would have been so easy to let this be a travel porn piece displaying the many virtues of a coastal adjacent Italian town, but it has just enough story and compassion for its characters to let them be the focal point amongst the beauty & charm that sucks them in, as well as its audience.

I feel like I’ve been saying the words “these characters don’t have enough chemistry” lately, so I’ll give credit where credit is due: Scott Foley & the striking beauty of Violante Placido definitely have enough convincing chemistry to ride this story to its largely obvious conclusion. A pair of recent widows does seem to be laying it on a bit thick, but when they are this attractive with a past history with Scott Foley like my elder Millenial self has (Felicity, Dawson’s Creek, Scrubs), it hardly seems to matter. 

The patchwork of La Dolce Villa – widows feeling love again, a father & daughter coming together after the loss of a matriarch, the beauty of small-town Italy, the appeal of house flipping, the charming locals (a couple that always breaks up and makes up, 3 older women with the same name who hang out together in the same spot every day, a striking young chef, & a sneaky yet boisterous goat), the food (!) – make for a Valentine’s Day snuggle on the couch worthy of the holiday.

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Watch La Dolce Villa If You Liked

• Falling Inn Love
• A Perfect Pairing
• Holiday in the Wild
• Mother of the Bride
• Under The Tuscan Sun

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MVP of La Dolce Villa

Scott Foley as Eric Field

It’s not easy being the one big-name star in a streaming romance. You have to be instantly recognizable, mean something to the age demo for the movie, possess enough likability to hang with for 90-100 minutes, AND have enough chemistry with your romantic co-star that we want to ride with the ebbs & flow of your budding relationship. 

Good news if you clicked on La Dolce Villa: Scott Foley still has enough of all of that, even when he has to start cold & gruffer than we want him to be. 

From his early breakout days on Dawson’s Creek & Felicity to his roles on Scrubs, Scandal, & Grey’s Anatomy, Foley has utilized his boyish looks to foster a career full of memorable characters and moments that fans from my elder Millenial age won’t soon forget.

With La Dolce Villa, he gets to be a sympathetic character with enough life & charm to command the center of the frame for the film’s duration. A widow with some romance still to spare. A former professional chef with real talent. A father looking to recapture something with his daughter after their shared loss. Foley can do it all and even speak conversational Italian. He embraces the one big star role and checks off all the boxes. 

Fans of the Netflix romance genre will rejoice with a worthy addition to the mantle. Scott Foley, romantic chemistry, small-town Italian charm, DIY porn, just enough family drama, & a goat named Maltese will give you that comfort watch you were seeking when you clicked it.