Rating: 
Summary: Italian beauty
Review: This is an artistically well-done movie if there ever was one. In fact, I don't think it would be going too far to call it Bernardo Bertolucci's best movie.The film centers around an American girl (Liv Tyler) who travels over to Italy to visit her relatives. While there, she gains the friendship of an older writer (Jeremy Irons) who is dying of cancer. Tyler exudes a youthful, natural and yet mysterious beauty which complements Irons' masculine, distinguished screen-presence quite nicely. In many sequences, Tyler is photographed so elegantly that she appears to be a model for one of Boticelli's paintings. Juxtaposed with this bonding is the desire for Tyler's character to lose her virginity. In this rite-of-passage, her dying friend becomes her mentor. They both want it to be "special," but she is also tempted to just "do it" with the efficacy of becoming a complete woman. As the cover of the DVD shows Liv Tyler nude, a lot of guys are probably wondering if this is a movie in which she actually bares anything. The answer is......yes! There are a few brief scenes in which she is topless. To my knowledge, this is the only film in which she appears nude. Filmed on the sun-drenched verdant rolling green countryside of Italy, the movie is colorfully illustrated by vibrant contrasts of red and green. The cinematography goes a long way towards giving the story a distinctly Italian flavor. So, if you're Italian, like Italian stuff, enjoy aesthetically pleasing films, admire Jeremy Irons or have a crush on Liv Tyler, this movie is for you. If none of these things appeal to you, this probably is not a DVD for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful film
Review: After a trio of exotic disappointments (The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky, Little Buddha), director Bernardo Bertolucci teturned to his native Italy for the first time in fifteen years with Stealing Beauty. The result is his most intimate film since Last Tango In Paris, a coming-of-age tale in which 19-year-old Lucy Harmon (Liv Tyler) travels from America to Tuscany to spend time with family friends following her mother's suicide. She has a couple of ulterior motives for taking the trip--to discover the real identity of her father and lose her virginity to Niccolo, an Italian boy who was her first love as a young teenager. The story is a flimsy construct but it's well supported by Tyler's appealing, open performance, some sharp playing from Jeremy Irons, Donal McCann and Sinead Cusack, and Darius Khondji's supple, deep focus photography. Bertolucci relies a little heavily on music cues to telegraph emotions but he's in full control of this subtle tale, which proceeds in a languorous daze to a tender and touching close. There are those who still bemoan the director's forsaking of political themse to concentrate wholly on the personal, but the film-making skill and the understanding of the human heart apparent in such films as The Spider's Stratagem and The Conformist are still very much in evidence here. It may focus on the soul rather than the state, but Stealing Beauty feels just as important as anything Bertolucci has made in the past.
Rating:
Summary: gorgeous at every turn
Review: If you watch this film for nothing else, soak in the beauty of the setting.
While I enjoy this film for both its plot and its artistic/aesthetic qualities, I have to admit that it is at its most stunning best when it comes to its cinematography. what a gorgeous backdrop for a virgin coming-of-age story! the plot may be a bit tired, and the characters too well known, but the twists that are supplied are enough to make it engaging. Liv Tyler is, of course, gorgeous and mesmorizing. The Italian and British actors that flank her almost eclipse her, but as her debut film, she does truly shine.
There are several scenes that are physically intriguing, but I most enjoyed the entire "party" sequence.... some odd, yet stunning filming.
Let's face it, everyone in this film is beautiful to look at (even Jeremy Irons as a dying man). You begin to lose interest in Lucy's (Tyler) quest at some point, but once the answer is revealed it is still somewhat satisfying.
I can highly reccommend this film to anyone that is into gorgeous scenery, lovely and easy story lines, and has and eye for the pleasing aesthetic so many films lack these days. Nothing earth-moving... but a VERY pleasant movie experience!
Rating: 
Summary: Bertolucci-light
Review: Apparently this was quite a personal film for Bernardo Berolucci who returns to Italy after a 15 year absence. He wanted to view his country from an outsider's viewpoint and so we have a movie set in Italy with hardly any Italian actors. But this may also have been a necessity as 'Stealing Beauty' is the first movie he has made in his home country that doesn't deal directly with politics. The British artists isolation in the loft of the Tuscan mountains symbolises their distance from everyday Italian life. For this new perspective Bertolucci reincarnates himself as a 19-year old American girl. Much of Lucy's poetry writing moments come from stories Berolucci's father (himself an accomplished poet in Italy) told him about his own past as a young poet. More reality rattled the film-making, as Liv Tyler herself found out when she was 9 that who she thought was her father was not her real father. The man behind the camera at the beginning of the movie who films Lucy on her way to Tuscany has an African braclet on his wrist. This is an indication that the man is in fact the Carlo Lisca character in the film, the war reporter who was one of the lovers of Lucy's mother. It seems that the most helpful thing that people find with reviews of this film is whether or not certain actresses appear with their kit off. All I can say on that issue is that Rachel Weisz comes away with all the top honours with Liv Tyler an unimpressive second. Great soundtrack
Rating: 
Summary: What about "no stars"?
Review: As an Italian (who teaches Italian in HS and college in the U.S.) I really looked forward to a good film after one of my students recommended this one to me. As a professor, I can sit through a lot of boring stuff, but this movie was so awful I couldn't even finish it. The scenery is nice but after watching this film for over an hour I found it to be pointless.
Rating:
Summary: [bad]
Review: I have better things to do than spending two hours watching Liv Tyler on a cliche' quest to lose her virginity to some Italian dude. >Yawn<
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Tuscany!
Review: While there is very little in the way of a plot, the surroundings and setting are so beautiful that I hardly minded at all. With all the easy music and interesting characters this will be probably be one of your favorites as it is mine.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: I saw this film on Bravo maybe a year ago, tuning in about halfway though. Howver, I've never been able to forget it. The sensual, mysterious beauty of this film is just that: unforgettable. I've never been as touched by a movie as I was by this. The movie itself is so delicate, so fragile. You have the feeling you've just entered through the eye of a needle, as if you've entered a place so untouchable, so fragile, that it is almost impossible to acheive. This film is a masterpiece, a fusion of love, lust, beauty and sensuality. It touches you in a way you'd never expected, giving you a window into Liv's soul (I can't remember the name of her character name... once again, I saw this movie a year ago). And into a time in her life which is unique in it's beauty: the time in which her sexuality is blossoming. This precious time, which we don't realize the sheer beauty and specialness of until it's over, happens once in a lifetime, and it is truly a gift to get to revisit it.
Rating:
Summary: Subtle and Moving
Review: This is a poignant, subtle and sensual film that slowly and gently draws you in and stays with you long after the story has ended. Those who are used to action-packed plots laden with explosions, car chases, and gratuitous sex should look elsewhere. Likewise avoid it if you like movies to hit you over the head with a message. Stealing Beauty's deceptively simple coming of age story has a depth which I appreciated even more after the third viewing. There's far more to this film than just basking vicariously in the enviably languid pace of Tuscan life (although that is a very appealing part of this movie and the scenery is gorgeous) or admiring Liv Tyler's youthful beauty. Stealing Beauty is rich with mystery (of birth, life, death, sex, choices) and wonder. It's a beautiful journey and I highly recommend this film.
Rating:
Summary: Movie: 5 stars; DVD: 3 stars
Review: This is just a comment about an unfortunate omission on the DVD: no English subtitles for any of the lines spoken in Italian. Having seen the movie on VHS, I really miss the bits of conversation among the Italian-speaking characters. They do add enough to the movie to be missed.
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