Stealing Beauty would be an odd elixir coming from most directors; from Bernardo Bertolucci, it’s almost perverse. And yet it’s consistent with the central nostalgia in his movies.

Very pretty, and very creepy.

Is there not something a little disturbing about the way in which ageing male film-makers are applauded for their ogling of actresses young enough to be their granddaughters?

Bertolucci's florid, rather sophomoric notions of decadent eroticism and parabohemian lifestyles are delivered in elliptical, inconclusive fiction-workshop parcels.