Starring: Carlo Cecchi, Sinéad Cusack, Joseph Fiennes, Jason Flemyng, Anna-Maria Gherardi Directed By: Bernardo Bertolucci Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC Label: 20th Century Fox Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: January 08, 2002 Running Time: 119 minutes Theatrical Release Date: June 14, 1996
Product Description: A young woman decides to lose her virginity on a trip to Italy visiting her late mother's Bohemian friends, and tries to discover the identity of her father. Genre: Feature Film-Drama Rating: R Release Date: 11-JAN-2005 Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com: Critics were decidedly mixed about this 1996 drama from Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, and the movie enjoyed only a brief theatrical release. Now it's best known for its early appearance by Liv Tyler as a 19-year-old beauty named Lucy who summers at a villa in Tuscany with a variety of artistic types who immediately respond to her inspirational innocence. An amateur poet who has decided it's time to lose her virginity, Lucy has come to Italy after the death of her mother, who visited this artist's refuge 20 years earlier. Several young Italian men find Lucy quite heavenly (she is, after all, Liv Tyler), and she's not immune to their attentions, but she'd rather spend time with a playwright (Jeremy Irons) who is dying of AIDS and therefore has something other than sex on his mind. The movie's plot is about as substantial as Tyler's character (she's sexy, all right, but hardly an intellectual muse), but Stealing Beauty creates a serene mood that's so soothing you'll want to book a flight to Tuscany immediately, just to soak up the setting's idyllic atmosphere. If you're in the right frame of mind, this movie is like a balm for the soul, and Tyler and Bertolucci can share the credit for making this two-hour vacation so charmingly relaxing. --Jeff Shannon
Good film. Bernardo Bertolucci has given us another beautiful film. This one is set in the Italian countryside where a girl, coming of age, takes us through her confusions of love, sex, and people overall. With an amazing cast that is anchored by the always great Jeremy Irons, Stealing Beauty is a great emotional tale. Liv Tyler is beautiful beyond belief in this film and the story keeps you interested with wonderful characters. And for the guys, come on, it is worth it for getting to see Liv Tyler topless if nothing else, so I think it is a good movie for couples because the women will love it, and the men (At least one part of it...haha!) I do recommend this movie and any film by Bernardo Bertolucci.
Beautiful and Graceful This is a beautiful film. It's a spot on treatment on how people, particularly men, interact with a virginal young beauty. The Italian countryside is so beautiful. The flow of the film is slow and dreamy. What I loved about the characters is that they are all human and full of flaws like everybody else. I first watched this film when I was sixteen and now several years later it is just as stunning.
much ado about nothing To comprehend this empty, meaningless drivel, one must accept, as do the characters in it, the premise that Liv Tyler is a veritable goddess of love. Unfortunately, as she is stultifyingly dull, inane, superficial, selfish, coy, and vapid, this is impossible. God only knows why Bertolucci cast her in this role, surrounded by others who can actually act. Not even consummate pro Jeremy Irons can make his fascination with this simpering whiner sound sincere.
The story is as banal as she is: teenage Lucy (Tyler) returns to Italy to lose her virginity, dreaming of a sexy young Italian she met at 13. She does not delight in the Tuscan landscape, study art, or learn Italian, which she insists on pronouncing with an excruciating American accent. Lucy lodges with a fatuous English sculpture and family who live the kind of `bohemian' life only available to the idle rich. The boys are beautiful (young Joseph Fiennes is stunning) and, their hormones raging, are after just one thing.
The only thoughtful character is a middle-aged man dying of AIDS (Irons). His inexplicable presence and predicament may have been the director's idea of adding `weight' to this fluff. He and Lucy become friends, though one cannot grasp why. Perhaps she admires his ability speak in sentences that parse. Her utter self-absorbtion is forgotten for a moment as he is whisked away to die in a hospital. But as soon as the ambulance is out of sight, pretty, perky, pouty Lucy quickly comes to her senses and returns to the task at hand: giving it up.
The only other American in the film is a thoroughly odious entertainment lawyer who, when not on the phone making deals, cheats on his wife at every turn. Being within earshot, she always catches him. He follows her around and grovels.
But back to Lucy! She is a relentless tease and remorselessly leads on her paramour. When the time comes, however, she spurns him with one last shrill whine of consternation, and flounces out of the room leaving him decidedly 'blue'.
Bertolucci must have been in love to have been this blind.
Pretty but dull... ...kind of like Liv Tyler, I guess!
This film is kind of one long homage to her, really...and if she were a more interesting beauty it just might have worked. While a passable actress, she just doesn't have much going for her other than nice hair, pouty lips, and flawless skin; her eyes are kind of vacuous and bland for the most part, and there's no primal sexual energy underneath...of course she's playing a 19 year old virgin for most of the film so I suppose that was Bertolucci's intent. Still, she's the kind of demure, quiescent type which just puts you to sleep even if she does look pretty from a distance and simply does not generate much gut-level desire.
Visually, this is indeed a beautiful film, like watching a series of postcards for two hours. The pacing is very Europeanish-slow of course, and some of the characters rather two-dimensional and predictable. Lots of artsy fartsy pretentiousness too, which can get a bit tiring, and at times bordered on outright cheesiness. Some of the cross-cultural bits, like the scene where we are subjected to Liv Tyler bounce and gyrate in her bedroom with her headphones blaring some thrash-type tune, were especially hard to stomach.
I was much relieved when it was finally over, frankly. Got tired of cringeing so much, lol.
Stealing my money Slow boring plot, other than 2 brief nude scenes, this movie is about as slow as it gets. Not really a story line to this and the actors who are top notch are wasted. Not an NC-17 movie.. other than a guy shows his Johnson for a VERY short time and so fast you would have to be superman to see it.. (Yeah I guess you ladies could freeze frame it)
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