Retro Film Review: Stealing Beauty (1996)

Teenagers these days, to the utmost horror of their parents and social conservatives, are engaging into sexual activities at very young age, but there are some that are resisting the trend, including the heroine of Stealing Beauty, Bernardo Bertolucci's 1996 drama. Following her mother's suicide, Lucy Harmon (played by Liv Tyler), 19-year old stepdaughter of American millionaire, goes to Tuscany in order to do two things - discover a man who could be her father and to lose virginity. The father could have been one of many journalists, artists and intellectuals who had moved around of Tuscany's luxurious villas twenty years ago. While Lucy wants to find his identity, presence of 19-year old virgin has a big effect on villa inhabitants' sex drives.

Elements of the plot described above - 19-year old girl who wants to lose virginity, exotic locations, setting populated by promiscuous hedonists - all that fits description of the films that belong to a certain genre usually not associated with R-rating. In this case, however, the author of the film was one of the most famous Italian film makers who had made himself a legend by very good and provoking films of 1970s and won "Oscar" for The Last Emperor. In 1990s, due to age and to the loss of his youthful Marxist ideals, Bertolucci looked like a shadow of his former self, unable to bring any substance to his films. Stealing Beauty is a film that definitely lacked substance and even the most sympathetic critics wondered whether the whole exercise was nothing more than Bertolucci's erotic fantasy about young woman (here played by former model and one of Hollywood's most beautiful young actresses). The script, dialogues and characters don't make much sense, and Bertolucci's attempt to prolong the inevitable and rather predictable resolution of heroine's quest make this film utterly boring. Another problem for Stealing Beauty is Liv Tyler's acting abilities not matching her looks, which becomes painfully apparent when she shares screen time with the likes of Jeremy Irons. Only thing that makes Stealing Beauty bearable (apart from nudity and sex that was explicit for 1990s Hollywood standards) is the beauty of Tuscanian landscapes, brilliantly captured by Darius Khondji's cinematography. Those who like beauty should nevertheless prefer not to have two hours of their lives stolen.

RATING: 3/10 (-)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on September 13th 2003)

==

Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
Cent profile https://beta.cent.co/@drax
Minds profile https://www.minds.com/drax_rp_nc
Uptrennd profile https://www.uptrennd.com/user/MTYzNA

Brave browser: https://brave.com/dra011

BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7

Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/14553-stealing-beauty
Critic: A