Stealing Beauty (1996)

Stealing Beauty (1996) Beautifully directed, magnificent landscapes, sumptuous Liv Tyler! The music is a real treat too. We hear Liz Phair, Cocteau Twins, Portishead, Nina Simone and even the song ‘Rock Star’ by Hole. ‘Acclaimed director Bernardo Bertolucci (‘The Last Emperor’) explores a young girl’s personal journey to womanhood in this luxuriously shot romantic adventure starring Liv Tyler and Jeremy Irons. When beautiful 19-year-old Lucy (Liv Tyler) arrives in Italy to spend the summer with her late mother’s bohemian friends, she is determined to fulfil two dreams. The first is to consummate her romance with the Italian boy she fell in love with four years earlier, and the second is to discover the identity of her father through clues in her mother’s diary. This ‘Stealing Beauty’ is ‘an exquisite and erotic adventure’. (Guy Flatley, Cosmopolitan) So I can understand why this film was a hit.

When it first came out as a teenager, I was bored throughout. Watching it again almost thirty years later, I found a certain interest in it. In fact, it’s either a film in which nothing happens (or nothing very exciting) or where some pretty crazy stuff happens. There are lots of artists coming through, doing some pretty impressive dancing. There are a lot of statues, a lot of colour, a lot of joviality. There’s even a rather sexual moment where we see almost all the couples copulating, each in their own bedroom. As for the most memorable sex scene, unfortunately it left me with a very bad memory. When I saw it again, it wasn’t exactly as I remembered it. What’s more, the poetic side of the very end had completely gone over my head, had sunk in like a duck’s feathers. As this story takes place in Italy, there are bound to be Italians, but there’s also quite a mix of cultures. Jeremy Irons and Rachel Weisz are the perfect Englishmen, of course! Jeremy plays a disturbing, disturbing, charismatic and endearing character. Yes, he manages to be all that in one film!

As for the very young Rachel, I didn’t know her the first time I saw her here. It was undoubtedly in The Mummy that she really began to make an impression. However, it’s not there that she plays best. She’s excellent here. As for the token Frenchman, the fabulous Jean Marais is in this cast. An actor I adored and discovered in Beauty and the Beast (1945). Liv Tyler does a marvellous job, even if you have to wonder whether she’s a good actress or whether everything is based on her physical beauty.

Here are some very concise comments I found on this film:- “A creative film that makes you want to see society and Italy. Liv Tyler in her most sensual role. I love the film and the soundtrack- brilliant! Good film and soundtrack- Very good!!!” For a man, it’s probably a bit boring if Liv Tyler and Rachel Weisz (The Mummy) weren’t walking around topless. That’s it!” That says it all.The film is easy to watch. I’m not going to shout ‘O Genius’ or ‘Masterpiece’! But this story of a 19-year-old girl trying to find her first love while discovering that her father isn’t her real father isn’t too bad.

Bernardo Bertolucci has accustomed us to his very long films. He dazzled us with The Last Emperor (1987), touched us with Little Buddha (1993) and disturbed and even shocked us with The Dreamers (2003). I admit that none of his films are among my all-time favourites, but I do have a fair amount of respect for his work.

My Rating