CASANOVA (2005). Casanova (Heath Ledger) has cleaned up his act in Lasse Hallstrom's engaging romantic-comedy version of his life; he's tamed the debauchery down to a tepid but bawdy "R" and learned to respect women and family values. The sly and sleek Ledger starts his adventures in a very Albert Finney way, pulling up his trousers and grabbing his boots as he flees discovery in the bedchamber of a novitiate; nabbed and threatened with hanging, he promises to marry and settle down. A snowballing of disguises, mistaken identities, near-escapes, raunchy exchanges, and broad comedy follows, all ending in a crescendo of confrontations and unmaskings at the inevitable Carnevale. The disguises include Francesca Bruni (a spunky Sienna Miller) as a scholar who agitates for women's equality; Casanova can't resist her, she plays hard to get, and the movie plays even harder to get them together. Casanova the film wears a disguise too, and the dizzying fluidity of false identities touches on the existential anxiety inciting compulsive sexual behavior like the hero's. In the charming buffoonery of Ledger's portrayal of the consummate seducer and liar, the painted mask of Fellini's 1976 vision lurks like a death's head. (108m)

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