the heat is on; A Merchant Ivory protege dives into romantic entanglements, New York-style, while French filmmaker Francois Ozon unwinds a turbulent marriage.(Movie Review)

Glenn Close has the imperious gaze and fierce impatience of a swooping falcon, which makes her just perfect for playing scheming aristocrats, villainous dognappers, and demanding divas. She stars as the last in Heights, a zippy new comedy about romance and betrayal set in the artier reaches of Manhattan. As Diana, a modern legend of the Broadway stage, Close opens the film by railing at her Juilliard acting class about today's emotional apathy. "We can't remember what it's like to be consumed with desire," she scolds them. "We have forgotten passion."

As if to prove her wrong, Heights pursues the interlaced romantic destinies of Diana and those around her. Her daughter, Isabel (Seabiscuit's Elizabeth Banks), is a struggling photographer unsure whether to marry her fiance, Jonathan, a petulantly pretty attorney played by James Marsden (best known as Cyclops in X-Men). Then there's Alec (Jesse Bradford), a gifted young avant-garde actor who's caught Diana's greedy eye, and Peter (John Light), a British journalist writing a Vanity Fair article about the lovers (himself included) of a poisonous gay London photographer. As Peter's inquiries stir up various infidelities, suppressed yearnings, and even duplicitous sexual identities, all five characters are hemmed in by lies, especially the ones they tell themselves. Asked if his love with Isabel is real, Jonathan replies, "It's close enough."

Based on a stage play by screenwriter Amy Fox, Heights is the first feature by 28-year-old Chris Terrio, a protege of James Ivory (whose last film set in Manhattan was the deadly Slaves of New York). Although Terrio applies the intellectual patina one associates with the House of Merchant Ivory, he's far less stuffy. His New Yorkers may be slaves, too, but their servitude is exposed with a brisk, light, almost geometrical precision; in keeping with its title, Heights shows us the characters with enough lofty detachment that we grasp a hard truth of life. Whether we indulge our feelings or bottle them up, love still makes a monkey of us all.

The movie's emotional core is the ...