Ferzan Ozpetek’s solid if flawed follow-up to his brilliant Steam opens with a fantasy reminiscent of both Dressed To Kill and Belly of an Architect. Antonia (Margherita Buy) wanders through a museum full of giant classical statuary and is asked by a tuxedo’d gigolo why her husband, Massimo (Andrea Renzi), ignores her. She doesn’t know the half of it: Massimo is about to be hit by a car and killed. Afterward, Antonia finds an inscription on the back of a painting that leads her to Michele (Stefano Accorsi), the man with whom Massimo has been having an affair for the past seven years. Instead of recoiling in rage and horror, however, she becomes fascinated with Michele and his ménage of gays, transsexuals, émigrés, and other outsiders. She’s also drawn to Michele himself. Ozpetek’s own attraction is to the conventions of melodrama, and those tend to overwhelm rather than underline the delicacy of mood and emotion, but the fine performances and the tone of detachment make this Life worth seeing. In Italian and Turkish with English subtitles. (106 minutes)