With no end to COVID-19 in sight, a film like Made in Italy might well be the closest we get to Europe in some time, and so I was hoping for lush cinematography of the Tuscan countryside to give me some proxy holiday experience.

The film opens in London where art dealer Jack (Micheal Richardson) is given a month to buy the art gallery he runs from the family of the wife (Yolanda Kettle) he is in the middle of divorcing.

His one source of possible finance is the old Italian home left in part to him by his long-departed mother.

Essential to his plan to get it restored to a condition suitable enough to sell is his estranged father Robert (Liam Neeson).

Jack drags his dad to Tuscany imagining this will be a quick little renovation project with a fat cheque at the end.

There are a wonderful series of films of expats discovering the charms of Italy, the fondest in the hearts of many viewers being Diane Lane's Under the Tuscan Sun, and that's where the filmmakers try and steer the action.

Jack gets a hint of the challenge before him when he meets local restaurateur Natalia (Valeria Bilello) who tells him she took five years to restore her old family digs to their current state.

Robert, an eccentric and once-successful artist, is less than helpful, locked in an upstairs room with a brush and an easel, while Jack oversees a handful of charming tradespeople to help trap the resident weasel and fix the rotting plaster and carpentry.

The filmmaker is James D'Arcy, formerly an actor who, though not a household name, delivered sterling work in television shows like Agent Carter, Broadchurch and Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

He wrote the script and makes his directorial debut here. There isn't too much to the writing, though the film itself works thanks to that lush Tuscan countryside.

The thing about the writing that must have appealed to Neeson are the parallels in the story to the sudden loss of his own wife, Natasha Richardson, and the chance to share that story with his co-star, his and Richardson's real-life son.

The Richardsons are British entertainment royalty - Natasha was the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave, granddaughter of Michael Redgrave.

Young Micheal shows promise of carrying on that family tradition, and the scenes opposite his father are strongest.

Neeson has a particular set of skills, and they're put to good use in a handful of scenes that explore the way we process grief.

"You can't remember her, and I can't forget," Neeson muses.

One of the film's charms is British thesp Lindsay Duncan as an expat real estate agent, lending her gravitas to a role that could have been slight with a lesser actress.

Another of its charms is the art of Annie-Rose Fiddian Green whose works stand in for those painted by Neeson's artist character.

There is an angry red wall of colour, painted decades earlier in grief at his wife's death, and a rustic old farmhouse with "great bones" that every Grand Designs or Escape To the Country viewer will adore.

A series of painful potential buyers add a touch of comedy.

There isn't much to the story but there is that charming scenery to take you on holiday for just a little while.