I Am Love

2009
I Am Love
7| 2h0m| R| en| More Info
Released: 08 November 2009 Released
Producted By: Mikado Film
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.iamlovemovie.com/
Synopsis

Emma has left Russia to live with her husband in Italy. Now a member of a powerful industrial family, she is the respected mother of three, but feels unfulfilled. One day, Antonio, a talented chef and her son's friend, makes her senses kindle.

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Reviews

TRlNITY This movie is so great. I'll skip everything you've already read about the cinematography and the acting - all so well done. It really felt like a book on screen not a movie. ie much more depth than you usually get. More subtleties.The only thing I didn't like was how they make the main character "heroic" (via the music). While she is so beautiful on the outside - she's so ugly on the inside; letting her son die to keep her selfish secret safe. She treats her husband poorly when he's done nothing but love and provide for her. Yet the movie portrays her as this bird trying to get air.... I dunno. A little more like a selfish beauty who is actually monstrous - complete with teeth and talons ripping her family apart to get what she fancies.... this year. You do get the impression she'll want something else in a few yrs and she'll rip her "new stable life" apart when she does. That twisted morality aside... :-) this movie is worth every minute. I did not find anything distracting about the camera angles or the music. Every part of it had purpose. And a lot of the images, in my view, were symbolic.
stephparsons A huge, artsy,  elegant Italian extravaganza of a film featuring immaculate, expensively stylish clothing, a big rich family and the 'power of love'.  In a nutshell, the mother falls in love with one of her son's friends, they meet secretly and have lots of sex with frenetic insects and windblown flowers waving about in the background.  Son figures out his mother is having an affair, they have a tiff, she follows him outside and he falls in the swimming pool and dies.  Family distraught; big funeral; wife tells hubby she's in love with Antonio, hubby says 'you no longer exist'.  They go home, wife packs a bag (or rather, maid packs it for her) and she leaves, but not without giving a meaningful look to her lesbian daughter - the only one who 'understands' true love?  The end.  Very enjoyable to watch what with all the gorgeous clothes and Italian scenery but a disappointingly unclear ending.  What happened?  Does she set up house with lover boy?  Do they live happily every after? Was the moral simply 'find true love and bugger your family'?   Arrg!   I must know more!
Srinivas G Phani Magnificent is the word that comes to my mind on seeing 'I am Love'. It is vividly made, on detailed, glossy sets and the actors are draped in costumes smooth as silk. 'I am Love' is beautiful to watch but shallow and very plain within.The story is of a Russian woman who becomes Italian once she arrives married in Milan to an extent that she 'forgets' her original name and adopts the Italian name Emma Recchi. Unhappy and utterly restrained and subdued to her household duties as the wife of an aristocratic businessman , she one day finds herself drawn towards the newly discovered erotic love with a lower class man.Although the first half is smooth and interesting, I find some scenes to be terribly overdone. The pretentious grandfather announcing his heir is one such scene that can be singled out. On the plus side, the sub- plot involving Emma's lesbian daughter fascinates. It is very well handled, with the right amount of subtlety. The scene at the train station when the daughter ditches her boyfriend carries a strange awkwardness as the family doesn't know how to react to the scene. Swinton here, as Emma, emotes helplessness very well. The following scene deserves even higher points for Swinton's masterful acting when her daughter comes out. It is here that she experiences a jolt of hidden, unfulfilled desire popping out.That is it and from here, the film falls flat. It is left very vague why she goes after the chef. Agreed he makes some delicious Russian food (which Swinton tastes in another wonderful scene) but is that all? After that, before we actually digest their attraction, a very tastefully and aesthetically pictured love-scene is splattered on the screen. The imagery of the insects sprinkled in between is superb! That scene is one of my all time favorite love-scenes. The Sun, skin, grass, body, sweat has never looked so inviting.The second hour drags with little story development and the ending is rushed. 'I am Love' develops as a poem on the unsung beauty of enigmatic love, eroticism and subdued desires but the end spoils it. I never understood the hurry in the climax scene. Yet I am Love is a very good film, well made and directed. Certainly Luca Guadagnino can make better films I eagerly look forward to.The cinematography and costume-design are wow! They very successfully bring magnificence. Swinton is exotic, mysterious and beautiful. These are perfectly nuanced by the lush costumes. She was feminised beyond recognition in the initial reels. The camera-work includes some difficult masterful shots. One of those that would linger in my memory forever is the scene where Swinton descends the stairs irresistibly to passionately kiss her lover. The camera follows her descend the stairs hoveringly. It is breathtakingly beautiful. Same to the scene where she climbs atop a monument after discovering some letters from her daughter. The whole film is delight to the eyes.Tilda Swinton herself is magnificent. She speaks very little, but when she does, it is intoxicating. Her monologue half-way through the film in which she talks of coming to Milan, becoming Italian and her intense struggle is exemplary. With the beautiful images of the valley and her terrific voice, the scene is a highlight. But she seemed unfocused in the second half. It was often difficult to understand her, something we did easily in the first half. Maybe, that is the strength of her performance. All in all, the magnificent Swinton's performance drives the film.The music by John Adams supports the film very well. Luca rightly chose the instrumental pieces although I wonder what Adams saw in the film that compelled him to allow the makers to use his score. The film is a mixed bag. It leaves one unimpressed overall.
paul2001sw-1 The ever-versatile Tilda Swinton stars as a Russian-born Italian in Luca Guadagnino's film 'I am Love', which is beautifully filmed, well-observed and acted with a nice sense of understatement. Yet this tale of a wealthy family suffers somewhat from the basic irrelevance of its drama. Being happy is a challenge for everyone, even for the rich, but a story where the characters are essentially free to choose their own lives can feel slight, and although part of the point here is that the individuals concerned are prisoners of their own privilege, the point is made without any satirical venom - the tears of the servant, crying over the departure of her mistress at the end of the film, are shown without irony. Although there are details to enjoy here, I found it hard to sympathise with any of the characters over any of the others. It's not a bad film, but a social dimension to match its emotional one might have added to its impact.