I Am Love

I Am Love (Io sono l’amore) – the operatic tale of the family of a zillionaire Milan industrialist and how each family member seeks happiness – is less than the sum of its parts.  The movie has many successful components: another fearless performance by Tilda Swinton, searing love scenes, and some nice small touches in the screenwriting (an aristocratic family’s treatment of the new wife during a tragedy, the re-taking of a man’s suit coat, among others).  But the soundtrack’s musical crescendos at the most emotionally charged moments are too distracting, as are the over-the-top plot points in the third act.  And the character of the favorite son is written to be impossibly sweet and naive.  Marisa Berenson (whose career has been pretty quiet since 1975’s Barry Lyndon) is excellent in a small role.

There is some mouth-watering food porn (especially the glazed prawns); if this movie could generate a wider audience, the line “I made your mother prawns” would become a catch phrase, as in “I made your mother prawns and we hiked the Appalachian Trail”.

The film making is described in the New York Times.

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