The price of an obsession with beauty is steep in The Embalmer, a new Italian film about a lonely taxidermist who fixates on a younger protégé. Based on the true story of a homosexual dwarf who was murdered by his handsome, male lover and the lover's pregnant girlfriend, it's a dark, claustrophobic film that has an intriguing subject, an unpredictable story and some very good performances. It's also an elusive film that avoids connecting some obvious dots and thus ends up on a note that, however factually correct, feels contrived and a bit of a cop-out.

Peppino (Ernesto Mahieux) is a middle-aged dwarf who leads a withdrawn, carefully controlled life as a local taxidermist. One day while visiting the zoo, he is thunderstruck by a handsome, vital young man named Valerio (Valerio Foglia Manzillo). The two men chat. Soon enough, they're visiting each other's respective places of employment. Valerio becomes Peppino's protégé in the art of taxidermy. And even sooner, they're socializing together, living together, becoming the best of friends and even sharing group sex.

This scenario sets the stage for a would-be seduction that ends with disastrous results. It's clear immediately that Peppino's overbearing interest in Valerio and insinuation into his life is the by-product of a homosexual desire. It's probably clear to Valerio as well, though he tolerates the attention, and even returns the affection to a small extent. Things become complicated when Valerio begins seeing the troubled Deborah (Elisabetta Rochetti); seen by Peppino as a natural rival. Both Peppino and Deborah spend the latter half of the film in a power struggle for Valerio's affections, with Valerio caught in the middle of the escalating tension.

In a questionable subplot, Peppino is also involved in shady dealings with a mafia don, and called upon at regular intervals to do dirty work on human corpses. These diversions give Valerio and Deborah a chance to explore their building relationship, and when push comes to shove and tensions burst, the loyalties shift and desperation sets the stage for the film's violent climax.

Matteo Garrone's The Embalmer invites comparisons to Patrice Leconte's magnificent erotic thriller Monsieur Hire, in which a lonely, withdrawn man living in a Paris suburb falls in love with a manipulative and beautiful young woman who would seem, initially, unattainable. The depths of his obsession open his heart to love before inevitable tragedy. The Embalmer, for a while, has much off the same tone of dark sadness, longing and a loveless character on the fringes of society.

But for all its skill in setting up Peppino's claustrophobic, private world, and the emerging relationship between Peppino and Valerio, the film doesn't seem to know much what to do with the two once Deborah enters the picture. It's fairly apparent that the two men share a scene of sexual intimacy, yet it's never discussed further, muting the drama and robbing the film of a complex dimension that would explain the widening chasm between the two of them. There's much between them that is unsaid. Though somehow Valerio develops such strong feelings for Peppino, that he's willing to abandon the pregnant Deborah, and the new life they've created together, to get on a train and build a new life with Peppino, somewhere exotic, and far-removed from what might possibly be a staid, family life.

As embodied by Manzillo, Valerio is the type of guy that anyone, man or women, would turn their head to observe in a street-corner passing. And what's most fascinating in the film is the idea that beauty can be attained, or more importantly, possessed. It's never that clear in the film that either Deborah or Peppino are actually in love with Valerio, but rather seduced and charmed by his extreme good looks and good-hearted charm. This "ownership of beauty" subtext sets the stage for some very complex and manipulative scenes of seduction in which Valerio is a willing, or at least easily persuaded participant. I was hypnotized by the film's sexual power plays and found its unpredictability intriguing.

The resolution of the film was a bit less satisfying to me, for the same reasons that Todd Field's painful In the Bedroom may have faltered slightly in it closing scenes. In both films, there are complex and emotionally damaged entanglements that are set up by expert actors, and in both films the drama ends up taking a backseat to a violent and unexpected plot twist that doesn't so much resolve the problems as it does temporarily distract from them. The violent ending of The Embalmer, however based on fact, feels like a cheat to the triangle of dimensional characters and their difficult drama.