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Stealing Beauty

Stealing Beauty

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A true masterpiece.
Review: Simply put, this is a must see movie. Truly a cinema photography masterpiece. The director captures your attention with his skillful use of colors and beauty. Don't rent this, BUY IT! You'll enjoy this many times over. If you don't love the artistic qualities of this film, you'll at least love the beauty and inocence of Liv Tyler. The plot is a little weak, but the film's beauty more than makes up for it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Interesting and beautiful film
Review: This film is really quite unique; I must admit that the plot is a little dubious and winding (kind of leaves you wondering "what's the purpose?"). However, after you get into the movie, you're not too concerned with the plot per se. Watching this film is like admiring a painting. It's more about emotion, atmosphere, and most of all, beauty, than it is about a particular story. Like the title suggests, this film is about beauty. Beauty is presented in many forms; it is in the rolling hills of Tuscany, and it is certainly within the sinfully seductive and heavenly Liv Tyler. I believe it was the director's meaning to portray Liv Tyler as "beauty incarnate"; the very essence of feminine perfection. No one could have played this role better than Liv Tyler. She is so breathtakingly beautiful that one feels guilty staring at her so intently. I agree with a previous reviewer that the director attempted to prove that losing one's virginity can be a beautiful thing, and I admire this refreshing point of view.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Beautiful Vacation
Review: In this 1996 film, Liv Tyler makes her stunning debut. Set to a soundtrack that is a good mix of quintessentially '90's music (a la Portishead and Liz Phair) and retro classics (like "My Baby Just Cares For Me" and "I'll Be Seeing You,"), this film takes both Liv's character, Lucy, as well as the viewer, on a journey into mystery and enchantment. Lucy embarks on her journey to Italy after the death of her mother, a famous poet and artist. She travels there in search of greater knowledge about her mother, who spent a brief few weeks there one summer. But what Lucy really uncovers in Tuscany are the answers to secrets in her past. And, as the film goes on, she discovers more and more about herself, and the woman she is to become. This film is a great, slowly paced meditation on sex, love, art and self-awareness. When Lucy finds out that she was "conceived" in the olive groves of the artists' villa there, her curiosity deepens and the search for her birth father becomes one of the main goals in her journey. Faced with the loss of a future with her mother, Lucy is looking towards the past for information about those she loves, for knowledge about herself and where she came from, and for hints about where this might lead her as she takes on the life of an adult.

The film begins with shots of Lucy sleeping on the train on her way to Tuscany. There is even one devilish strategic close-up shot of her jeans which is perhaps explained later in the film when it is revealed in a comical exchange between Lucy and Jeremy Irons' character that the beautiful 19 year old Lucy is a virgin. Unbeknownst to Lucy, she was being taped on her journey by a fellow passenger on the train. But he gives her "beauty" back to her in the form of the videotape. Her fate is still in her hands. From there, the film follows several slow, melodic plot lines, one of which is the attempt to find the perfect first sexual partner for the young and much-loved Lucy.

Liv plays a perfect beauty here. She is innocent, touching, bright, curious, and passionate, and as the film goes on, she takes a cue from the artists at the villa and becomes and more free in her expression, more comfortable in her own skin. But she is also careful. She wants her passion to be shared with someone worthy of it, someone who gives as well as takes. It takes a while for her to find out who that perfect catch is, but as in life, the story is what happens while she is waiting for the "pay-off."

Her curious habit of striking a match to each finished poem and burning it up seems to say that she is not yet confident in her artistic abilities, that she wants to keep some things sacred, private. She is cautiously awaiting sharing herself on a deeper level with those whom she grows to love.

Jeremy Irons' character, a man struck by illness in the most beautiful of places, is a nice offset to the virginal beauty of Tyler. Together, they bring the film full circle from youth and glowing health to the natural course of death and dying. The attention they pay to one another is mutual. Lucy in this way is wise as well as youthful.

The countryside in this film is magical. The vineyards of Tuscany, with the glowing sun above, are lovingly captured by Bertolucci. The film is as much an ode to youth and innocence, and the inevitable loss of it (which I think Bertolucci is saying can also be beautiful) as it is to the Italian countryside.

Others in the film who have gone on to receive wide acclaim and appear in such movies as Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth, Swept From the Sea, and The Mummy are the two British actors Joseph Fiennes and Rachael Weisz.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Sensuous Film Not To Be Missed!
Review: Absolutely incredible! Though I am a sucker for a lot of soul-searching types of chick-flicks, never before had I been so enraptured by a movie that has been dubbed a chick-flick. Liv Tyler's acting was commendable, and the rest of the cast lived up to and beyond the challenge of overcoming her beauty. The cinematography was breath-taking and the storyline grabbed me from the beginning. Few movies are about a young girl's longing for love AND sex, and I was pleasantly surprised that Stealing Beauty did a remarkable job of portraying boh.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Art
Review: The story is good, not great, but good...if it had been more on the level of Babette's Feast, this would have been a masterpiece, BUT..Visually, this film is stunning. The scenery and filming of it is unbelievable! I felt like I was looking through the eyes of every impresionist painter of the past as I soaked in the composed shots. Beautiful!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Film!
Review: Great film! Reasons:

1. Lush sceneries of the Italian countryside.

2. The very beautiful, talented and always watchable Liv Tyler.

3. Great supporting cast (eg. Rachel Weizz, Jeremy Irons, D.W.Moffet, and the many talented Italian actors)

4. Wonderful storyline and script.

5. Excellent photographic skills. Watching the movie is like being in a beautiful dream where you don't ever want to wake up.

.. and more! I highly recommend this video to anyone who loves beautifully-made movies with thought-provoking storylines.

The movie's set in the 1970s. After her mother passes away, Liv Tyler's character (Lucy Harmon) goes back to Italy (where she first visited 4 years ago) to solve the mystery of who her real father is (all she has for clue is a mysterious poem written by her mother when she was still alive). Lucy also desperately wants to fall in love and "give herself" to a deserving man. There're several guys vying for her attention. But who wins her heart in the end? Nicolo? Oswaldo? Christopher? A drunk guy she met at a party? Watch the movie to find out.. but I'll just like to add that in the end, Lucy made a wise and excellent choice and I just love her for it!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It's about the actors as much as anything.
Review: Hello, we have Liv Tyler, Rachel Weitz and Sinead Cusack on one side and Jeremy Irons, Joe Feinnes, Donal McCann and Jean Marais on the other (not to mention some other toothsome young men, but never mind them right now.) My point is that there's not only a strong eye-candy factor going on here, but it showcases some notably talented individuals, some like Marais and McCann in their last (or almost last)roles and some, like Feinnes and Weitz, early in their careers. The story isn't much, and Tyler doesn't contribute much, IMO, but she's pretty enough that shouldn't matter. The others take up all the slack so admirably and completely that she's almost extraneous. And if they don't capture your imagination, the breathtaking scenery will. I'm giving it 4 stars for being pretty and for putting so many wonderful actors to work. Don't expect a whole lot more.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Breathtaking
Review: I've seen this movie at least 10 times, but I'm a girl and love the weepy chick-flicks. In this particular film, Liv plays a sensuous soulful 19 year-old named Lucy. She travels to Tuscany as a gift from her father, and winds up searching for stories about her deceased mother and the men she was with. She stayes with her aunt and uncle,cousin and dying neighbor (Jeremy Irons) who she confided in about her virginity. He spills the beans and she is faced with a bit of humiliation until she meets Oswaldo, whom she fell in love with years before during her first visit. In this passionate romance, Liv is stunningly beautiful and naive, but in the end she shows her courage when confronted with the news of who her biological father is. This is an excellent movie for couples:-)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A truly beautiful film.
Review: A truly beautiful film that follows a girl on her quest to find love (and lose her virginity). Scenery, tone, filming and writing are all quite exquisite.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great story of summer love, romance, and soul searching
Review: This movie was a very unique film about a girl's search for her father, and the unexpected love she finds in Italy. The scenery and filming in this movie is beautiful. I am a guy, and loved this movie, so I'm sure you would too.


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