The story is the following: a young American comes to Italy to visit her relatives. Her mother died recently but everybody remembers her and look at her just as the daughter of her mother. Gradually she is being involved in other people's lives: a young boy is trying to seduce her, the old sick man falls in love with her. The plot is complicated by the fact that she is trying to find her real father among all the men of the community. But in fact the plot is not very important as Bertolucci tried to "show us life as it is." The sexual theme of the movie is that she is still a virgin and naturally she tries to do something about it. Other characters are not really better. It seems like they all don't know what to do with their miserable lives. Anyway the film is too long and some episodes are just irritating.
Acting game is not very impressive. Liv Tyler is dull in this role though I like her playing very much in Onegin. Most of the actors are not bright. The best roles are very episodic that cannot amend the general impression. The only part I liked is the part of Alex, the sick man, brilliantly performed by Jeremy Irons (he masterfully played in one of the versions of Lolita. I could not understand why magnificent Jean Marais played such an insignificant part in this film, probably just to attract public.
The last episode, when the main heroine finally lost her virginity is dull. Music in this film is not anything particular. The director uses standard classic or some other popular theme. I don't want to give you the impression though that the film is totally bad, not at all. I'm sure there are people who wpuld love such stories and such films. So if you managed to form your own opinion from this dizzy description, you can decide by yourseld does it worth seeing. There is neither interesting story nor noticeable bright characters. But if you like Bertolucci in general you will probably like this one too.
