I Am Love
If ever there was a film I was supposed to enjoy, this was it.
I Am Love boasts an admirable talent (Tilda Swinton), it is thoughtfully and artfully shot in brilliant locations (Milan and San Remo), and it explores the idea of being true to yourself, whatever the cost. It even has a lovely score. What’s more, it comes highly recommended by critics whose discrimination I trust. All the elements appear to be in place and yet I came away unsatisfied. Is it the film’s fault or is it mine?
Swinton plays Emma Recchi, the glacial wife of an Italian industrialist. The family firm is well established but is undergoing tribulations as the patriarch is anointing his successors. The expectations and the stakes are high. The natural successor is the pompous Tancredi (Pippo Delbono), Emma’s husband. Their son Edoardo is in line too, but he’s not quite cut from the same cloth as his father and grandfather. Maybe he cares too much about the workers at the factory, or tradition or ethics or something. He is about to marry Eva (Diane Fieri) and most of his family disapprove of her lower status.
Emma is supposed to be the focus of our attention. She is an outsider. Russian by birth, she was brought to Milan like a piece of art by her husband/collector. He even changed her name.
We are introduced to Emma’s unfulfilling life via a winter dinner party. The family home is all mirrors and doors and the director, Luca Guadanigno, has a field day with them, suggesting feelings of seclusion, secrecy and inhibition, despite the trappings of wealth.
Edoardo has lost a race to a humble chef, Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), and in the middle of the dinner party, the chef delivers a cake to the family mansion as a goodwill gesture. He is an outsider too, and the cake is mighty fine. Watch out, Emma!
A positively Lawrence-like love affair ensues (I was on the half-hearted lookout for a gamekeeper at one point) and things end very badly. The devices by which the affair begins and is later discovered are two more culinary creations –prawns with a vegetable risotto; and a clear soup of Russian origin. Then there is an accident that feels very contrived. This is one of the reasons I lost my connection with the film, and I was not on my own. My companion—a foodie and avid film buff—later admitted to falling asleep for a while. Serious-minded and engaging pieces of film art shouldn’t cure insomnia. So what’s wrong?
The story, the story, the story.
The film is beautiful and carefully wrought and brilliantly performed (especially by Swinton), but the story didn’t stand up—it descended into melodrama and it failed to oblige me to identify with the characters’ situations. I’m temperamentally on the side of underdogs everywhere, and I’m a sucker for any story in which characters follow their hearts, whatever the consequences. I Am Love left me feeling cold and a bit cynical.
Just to make sure that my monolingualism hadn’t betrayed me again (the film is in Italian and Russian, with English subtitles) I checked with some Italian-speaking friends who were at The Village Theatre for the screening last Sunday. Their verdict: “Un po noiso. Non me è ticiuto.”
Many reviewers like I Am Love. I don’t.
Neil Wilson
