It may well be, of course, that 19-year-old American girls go on summer holidays to Italy to lose their virginity.

Director Bernardo Bertolucci and star Liv Tyler almost make us believe the tall tale, before we sink into a heat-induced tedium.

Tyler has an additional motive, however - to find her real father.

So it's highly possible, the director supposes, that she might do both, as well as befriend a dying poet (Jeremy Irons) and be pursued by several separate swains, all within the confines of a stone cottage.

Thanks to well-signposted plot developments, there isn't a single thing here that you could call a surprise.

The actors pose modishly about the Italian countryside and there is much fornication which, under Bertolucci's cultured hands, almost passes for art. Tall Tyler has a certain Leslie Caron-like gamine appeal.