It's a familiar story: The man seems to have everything; a bulging bank balance, a successful career, a house in the country, and a beautiful wife — but he's still bored.

And that boredom allows the enemy to penetrate and take down the walls of the castle he has so carefully built. So goes the story of "Le prix du desir (released in Japan as "Soshite Deveneaux no Morie)" written and directed by Italy's Roberto Ando. Ando's name is as yet little known outside of Europe — for long he had worked as an assistant for Federico Fellini and, later, Francis Coppola. This is his second film at the helm and he assembles a French cast and drenches the screen with a very particular sensuality. The centerpiece is the renowned Daniel Auteuil, always interesting to watch and here playing Daniel, a novelist in his 50s who embarks on an affair with a life-ruining femme fatale (played by Chanel model Anna Mouglalis).

"Le prix du desir" is mindful of Louis Malle's "Damage" (which paired Jeremy Irons with Juliette Binoche) in which a man suddenly finds himself so hideously bored in successful middle age that he goes overboard for the charms of a much younger woman — in both cases the fiancee of his son — and takes a nosedive into tragic disaster. While Irons was a polished Mayfair politician so repressed that he couldn't have an intimate conversation with his wife without making it sound like a Parliament speech, Auteuil as Daniel is more a man of the world. Daniel works under the pseudonym of Serge Novak and, despite his best-seller author status, had never exposed himself to the media. Daniel works alone, in a secluded cabin in the woods, and shuns visitors, even snubbing his beautiful, supportive wife, Nicoletta (Greta Scacchi), for the most part. But on the way from Paris to attend his son's wedding in Capri, he meets the young, alluring Milla (Anna Mouglalis) whose interest in him is obvious from the moment they set eyes on each other. They spend the night together, and at the wedding he discovers that Milla is, in fact, his new daughter-in-law.