From the Vine

It's Eat Pray Love for wealthy male boomers: embarrassingly sincere and iffily patronising to its Italian characters.

Sean Cistera's film is, in its modest way, attractive enough. It doesn't aim very high, but its celebration of old traditions in a world where environmental concerns are being set aside in the name of progress is certainly welcome.

For a short time, the scenic delights of the place keep you interested but after you have settled in, it's up to Pantoliano to prove he has the charm to persuade you to overlook the story's improbabilities and engage with him and it's a hard sell.

Playing a restless CEO fleeing his corporate and familial responsibilities in Toronto for the vineyards of Italy, Pantoliano gives a curious edge to the film, turning a stock hero into something a titch more complicated and compelling.

While it brushes past weightier issues like environmental preservation and the future of rural communities, From The Vine is first and foremost a cinematic holiday.

Not a single character seems to have a thought they don't overtly state, every plot development is telegraphed as far ahead as the movie can manage, and stressing the apparent idyll by shoehorning in yet another scenery shot happens again and again.

Is a welcome reminder of Joe Pantoliano's presence on screen, with this beautifully shot travelogue of a movie affording him a rare leading man turn.

Everything comes up roses when an over-it Toronto exec remakes his life in an ultra-romantic Italy.

Doesn't add anything to the soul-searching travelogue genre but the point of these movies is not to reinvent the wheel. Like rom coms, the most formulaic variety of mass entertainment there is, it's the journey not the individual stops along the way.

From the Vine is a less-infuriating-than-usual stab at a storyline that usually just reeks of entitlement and narcissism. Writing today, at the end of an appalling year, let's call that a win.