WHEN OUR MOST intimate relationships are at stake, we sometimes must endure heart-wrenching pain before developing enough wisdom to determine what comes next.

Such is the dilemma faced by characters in “Heights,” an engrossing ensemble drama from Sony Pictures Classics and Merchant Ivory Productions, the company helmed by the late Ismail Merchant, his partner James Ivory, and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Unfolding over 24 hours in contemporary New York City, “Heights” follows intersecting paths five adults take during their quest for solutions to life’s puzzles, most of which pertain to love. With razor-like precision, the film reveals in an almost matter-of-fact manner the difficult terrain often traversed in personal relationships regardless of sexual orientation, though homosexuality ultimately plays a leading role in this film.

JONATHAN (JAMES MARSDEN) plays an attractive, conflicted lawyer engaged to Isabel (Elizabeth Banks), a charming though naïve, photographer.

Isabel’s stage-actor mother Diana (Glenn Close) is highly respected in the New York theater world, but her own life appears to be quite another story. As a result, she embarrasses herself by sometimes flagrantly flirting with much younger men. This seems to fill an emotional void caused by an open marriage and the changes life inevitably throws at most every middle-aged woman or man.

Diana sets her sights on the refreshingly handsome Alec (Jesse Bradford), an aspiring actor with his own perplexing dilemma who auditions for a play she’s directing.

Peter (John Light) portrays a seemingly sensitive gay author commissioned by Vanity Fair to write a profile about his emotionally abusive lover, Benjamin Stone, a notorious photographer who viewers never see on screen. Because of Stone’s arm-twisting, the magazine hires Peter to profile a bevy of gorgeous men who appear in an exhibition of the photographer’s work. The sadistic catch is that all the models are Stone’s former lovers, a fact he fails to share with Peter.

EXQUISITELY HELMED BY first-time director Chris Terrio, “Heights” accurately captures the varying degrees of happiness, vulnerability, sadness and resilience that can characterize life in a big city. Terrio, 28, makes Manhattan’s cosmopolitan hustle and bustle, as much of a compelling lead character in the film as the ones played by the stellar cast.

Merchant, who recently died, gave the script to Terrio, whose longtime relationship with Merchant Ivory Productions began when he worked as an assistant on “The Golden Bowl” in 1999.

The emotionally rich screenplay by Amy Fox, based on her one-act stage play, reveals a keen understanding of human nature and how the smallest moments can be the most revealing.

After her overwrought performances in the “101 Dalmatians” films and “The Stepford Wives,” it’s nice to see Close return to the thoughtful, skillful acting that made her a star. It’s also been on display recently on FX’s “The Division.” In “Heights,” Close’s Diana is instinctively foxy and maternal, steely and vulnerable.

Marsden breaks away from his “X-Men” persona and delivers a startlingly nuanced performance. Bradford, a former teen actor, graduates to full-fledged hunk status in his role as Alec.

The film also features strong supporting turns by Matthew Davis, who plays an old flame of Isabel’s, George Segal as a rabbi, Isabella Rossellini as a magazine doyenne, and Eric Bogosian as a player in the theater world.

Even gay singer Rufus Wainwright makes a passable acting debut, as one of Stone’s bitter ex-lovers.

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