Ozpetek, the Turkish director of Hamam: The Turkish Bath and Harem Suare, has lived in the melting pot Ostiense district of Rome for 15 years, and sets his third film there with considerable observational skill.

That's one of the pleasures of his story which has two of Italy's best actors in parts that require the kind of concentration few others could sustain. Margherita Buy is a middle-class and happily married wife devastated by her husband's sudden death while crossing a street, and further sent into depression when she discovers an old painting has clearly been given to her husband by a lover.

The third shock is her discovery that the lover was a man (Stefano Accorsi). He lives in a working-class commune in which there are others she has never even contemplated meeting but, when she finds him, there's a bond there which has something to do with the pair's shared tragedy and possibly a kind of mutual attraction.

Though Ozpetek is an openly gay director, and there are gay themes in all his films, this is not so much about the complications of sex as about the woman's voyage of discovery which eventually allows her to come to terms with what has happened to her. The setting plays a major part in the film and adds to its subtlety, and it seems to inspire Buy and Accorsi to give of their best.

Le Fate Ignoranti is not a film during which you know what is going to happen every minute. It isn't always convincing because Ozpetek's clear preference for the life of the commune compared with that of his middle-class protagonist at times either brings cliche very near or pushes some extended scenes towards dullness. But, in general, this is an intelligent and sensitive film adorned by a foreigner's acute but never slavish appreciation of the complexities of Italian life.