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Stealing Beauty [1996]
![Stealing Beauty [1996]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511SBZ73HWL._SL160_.jpg)
RRP: £12.99
Our Price: £3.20 (subject to change)
Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
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
Monotonous and unsatisfying
Review date: 2008-01-23 Rating: 4 out of 10
The plus: The movie is pleasantly filmed in a beautiful setting of country houses in rural Italy; unconventionally overt display of sexual relationship and naturist display; true love triumphed and rewarded in the end with the joyful first-times.
The minus: flawed script, unfocused story where the journey of discovering the identity of father and resuming of youthful love is distracted to an explicit and needless anecdotes of naturist playing, love-making and sexual mind games. It is unconvincing and has little reality touch. There is also a myriad of strange yet underdeveloped characters. Directors seems could not decide on following a core storyline and instead packed the movie with large quantity of sub plots and supporting characters.
I would give it 2.5 stars yet having no such rating, 2 stars would approximate the actual value of the movie net of the graphic, erotic sex scenes and pretty actress.
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Reviews
Pure cinema
Review date: 2007-07-04 Rating: 10 out of 10
Here is a film made by a man who loves cinema - and it shows. Directors and actors equally should study the climatic scene between Liv Tyler and Donal McCann.
Utter Rubbish
Review date: 2007-02-17 Rating: 2 out of 10
Basically this contrived lot of rubbish, a bit of supposed sophistication to appeal to vulgar types who fancy themselves as having a bit of the arty in them - typically your middle class, cocktail sticks type woman, or your US Bostonite.
So where the marketing man has pitched this is:-
Irons slithering about (so cocktail sticks can have a good drool - disappointment here tho'), Tuscan setting + works of 'art' littered about (for the sophistos), with a few quacking American accents littered about (acceptability to the US market)+ a particulary gruesome self admiring US lead male (usually not wearing much) - pass me a sick bag
And home you can go feeling better for this 'culturally uplifting' movie!
Enigmatic truths
Review date: 2006-10-21 Rating: 10 out of 10
I first saw Stealing Beauty years ago when I was about 16 and was immediately drawn to its artistic qualities. I found myself identifying with Liv's character. The uncertainty of life no longer being a child with innocence, wanting to be 'a part' of that group ie. not a virgin. I find this movie really enigmatic every time I watch it, it expresses the feeling we all go through at some point, whether we like to admit it or not. Jeremy Irons is fantastic in this, always a brilliant actor, but here he offers the guidance that Liv's character needs, something i found necessary in my early adult life and in hindesight was a crucial part of my development of who I am today; having the guidance of someone older and wiser. This movie I feel will transport you in some manner; where is dependent on you as a person. The scenery and music is just simply sexy and unpretentious. Either way I feel this movie will make you think either about your life now or as a teenager. It is not a block buster, does not need a big cast, but the few key actors/actresses really bring to life the characters own issues with their lives and shows how we all question our own lives at some point. It shows how we all have idealisms and quite often we are let down we create a pedalstle too high, as liv's character seems to have done. To some this movie is almost healing and theraputic in an emotional sense. We have all been where Lucy has. To the cynics I say; Watch this film as if you were Lucy with an open mind.
Quite enjoyable but somewhat spoiled
Review date: 2006-01-25 Rating: 6 out of 10
by the presence of the unnecessary, unpleasant and unbelievable character played by Jeremey Irons. However,the presence of the impossibly beautiful Liv Tyler was some compensation...
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Jeremy Irons
Carlo Cecchi
Liv Tyler
Sinéad Cusack
Joseph Fiennes
Creators:
Jeremy Irons (Primary Contributor)
Liv Tyler (Primary Contributor)
Darius Khondji (Cinematographer)
Bernardo Bertolucci (Writer)
Pietro Scalia (Editor)
Chris Auty (Producer)
Jeremy Thomas (Producer)
Yves Attal (Producer)
Susan Minot (Writer)
Director(s):
Recording label: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
EAN: 5039036012133
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2004-06-21
Number of discs: 1
Audience rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 113 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1996-06-14
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: French (Original Language)
Language: German (Original Language)
Language: Italian (Original Language)
Language: Spanish (Original Language)