Stealing Beauty is Bertolucci’s return to Italy-and to an intimate scale-after 15 years of large-scale international filmmaking (“The Last Emperor,” “Little Buddha”). It would be nice to report that he’s come home as an artist, but this stupendously sensual director still seems a poet in search of a poem. This fragile, precious chamber piece, co-written with Susan Minot, rarely seems worthy of the high style lavished upon it. Tyler is an exquisite screen object, but the loss of her virginity to a well-chosen mate does not exactly resonate with Jamesian frissons. Trying to capture her awakening soul, Bertolucci remains a tourist, his film an album of beautiful snapshots. We wish we were there, but we’re not.
