This is one of several poems written by Lucy, the heroine of ``StealingBeauty,'' as she drifts through an endless house party in Tuscany. I quoteLucy's poetry because I want to set you a test question. Reading it, how oldwould you guess Lucy is? Nine? Fourteen? The notion of being ``quiet as a cup''is not bad.

``Rattle me'' is better than ``drink from me.'' Those doubleexclamation points, however... Pencils up. Lucy is 19. If this poetry seems unsophisticated for aworldly 19-year-old, you should read some of her other poems, which aresuperimposed on the screen in her own handwriting, and (I am afraid) her ownspelling.

Lucy is a creature without an idea in her head. She has no conversation.

No interests. No wit. She exists primarily to stir lust in the loins of the men.

After the death of her mother, a poet who visited these Italian hills 20 yearsago, Lucy has come back to an artists' home with two things on her mind: Shewants to discover the identity of her real father, and she wants to lose hervirginity. Experienced moviegoers can assess the risk that she will solve theseproblems simultaneously.

``Stealing Beauty'' is the new film by Bernardo Bertolucci (``LastTango in Paris,'' ``The Last Emperor''), who like many a middle-aged man beforehim has been struck dumb by the beauty of a nubile young girl, and has made themistake of trying to approach her on what he thinks is her level. The movieplays like the kind of line a rich older guy would lay on a teenage model,suppressing his own intelligence and irony in order to spread out before her thewonderful world he would like to give her as a gift. Look at these hills! Thesesunsets! Smell the herbed air! See how the light catches the old rose-coveredvilla! The problem here is that many 19-year-old women, especially thebeautiful international model types, would rather stain their teeth withcigarettes and go to discos with cretins on motorcycles than have all Tuscany astheir sandbox. (For an example of a cannier May-December seduction strategy,consider the recent release, ``Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud,'' in which an olderman fascinates a young woman by emphasizing his age and experience andpretending to be beyond her charms.) Lucy is played by Liv Tyler, a young actress who has been profiled inall the glossies by writers who find it delightful that she thought her fatherwas one rock star when in fact he was another. Thus there is an``autobiographical'' component to her search among the artistic layabouts at theTuscan villa for the man who seduced her mother 20 years ago. Tyler is indeedattractive, and looks enough like Lili Taylor to be her sister. But Lili Taylorusually plays smart women, and if she were in this movie her B.S. Alarm would beringing constantly. The villa is occupied by a sculptor (Donal McCann), who starts on a treetrunk with a chain saw and is soon sandpapering the curve of Lucy's chin. Hisearth-mother wife (Sinead Cusack) is tired after 20 years of cooking and keepinghouse for a continual house party, and no wonder. The most interesting guest isa gay playwright (Jeremy Irons) who is dying of AIDS and attracts Lucy becausehe is not after her. Other guests include an art dealer (Jean Marais), an adviceto the lovelorn expert (Stefania Sandrelli), a designer (Miranda Fox) and anentertainment lawyer (D.W. Moffett), who sighs, ``I think it would be great, youknow, to just sit around all day and express yourself.'' Neighbors drop in,including assorted young men, one of whom may have sent Lucy a letter which shethinks was romantic and poetic--as indeed anyone who writes like Lucy would.

The movie is great to look at. Like all those other Brits-in-Italymovies (``A Month by the Lake,'' ``Enchanted April,'' ``A Room With a View''),it makes you want to find this place and go there. In this case, however, youhope the movie characters have moved out before you get there. There is a simmerof discontent beneath the surface of everyday life in the villa, a sort ofsullen, selfish unhappiness that everyone has about his or her lot in life.

The purpose of the Lucy character, I guess, is to act like a catalyst ora muse, shaking up old patterns and forcing these exiles to decide where theirhomes really are. She is fresh and they are decadent narcissists. Only theJeremy Irons character, absorbed in his dying, and the Donal McCann character,absorbed in his art, have lives of any meaning.

The young men who buzz about Lucy are of no substance whatever. Theolder men are of similar substance, but can make better conversation, whichwould be useful if there were any evidence that Lucy was a conversationalist.

Actually she serves for Bertolucci more as a plot device than as a person. Sherepresents some kind of ideal of perfect virgin beauty, and the film's openingshots, in which a photographer on a plane sees her sleeping and takes closeupsof her lips and crotch, set the tone. The sad thing is that, sleeping, sheembodies what she represents to this movie just as well as when she's awake.