A 19-year-old played by Liv Tyler drops into the Tuscany landscape near Siena, Italy on a personal quest that she, herself doesn't even seem to realize. But the complexity of the film comes from the landscape of personalities and ages on this beautiful Italian hilltop, a serious artist, a womanizer with a ubiquitous cell phone, a dying gay playwright portrayed by Jeremy Irons - middle aging post-hippies in a milieu of attractive women repeating some of the dumb things they did as younger hippies.

Bertolucci, the director, achieves something in this film we don't see in American films ... something besides the European flavor, the comfort with nudity and bodies and sex. That something is a truly normal attractive post-adolescent young woman with no bizarre behaviors, who is not pathologically self-centered or manipulative and who is on a quest for life, her own life.

That said, the camera is close-up focused on Lucy (Liv Tyler) a little too much for my taste. I think this unbalances the story, but not by a lot. I also saw more depth in this film than the critics acknowledged - it got barely adequate ratings based mostly on the foolish, ordinary actions of the characters - but give me a break! I lived through the 60's, went to parties like this and it's the kind of stuff people do. I didn't like the name of the film. Linda suggested Borrowing Beauty, which would have been more accurate but probably produce less box office.