|
I
Am Love
REVIEWER
– MARTHA-ANN MILLER
Italian
film I Am Love takes place in Milan at the beginning of the
21st Century. As the millennium changes, so does the
Recchi family and their place in the world. Emma Recchi (Tilda
Swinton who is magnificent – rumour has it that she speaks Italian
with a Russian accent), the Russian-born matriarch, finds her life
taking a sudden turn when her father-in-law dies and the family
business is left to her husband and son Edoardo Jr. Her children are
now grown and she must find a new focus in her life. But she is
feeling isolated and trapped in her own home and sets off to find
fulfilment elsewhere. Emma travels to Nice, stopping in Sanremo
where she feels a sense of joy and freedom that comes from being in a
new place on her own. But her leap to freedom will change the lives
of all around her – the outcome so far reaching that even she could
not have imagined the tragic consequences.
This
story builds slowly and spends a great deal of time showing the
affluence of Emma’s life – the servants, the richness of the
beautifully appointed mansion, her jewels, even the magnificent
crockery on display as the family entertain. In fact, it is during
these small moments that the family dynamics are revealed – the
eldest son who can do no wrong, the daughter who is hiding a massive
secret, the grandfather who wants to keep the family textile business
in the family and his son who wants to sell it. As all this is
unfolding, Emma’s sense of not belonging grows and she becomes
increasingly eager to discover something other than the life she
leads.
A
lot of the story is beneath the surface –repressed emotions waiting
to spill out. And in the end, it is one shocking moment that changes
everything for the entire family as the unhappy Emma who, in the
process of obtaining her own happiness, destroys the happiness of
others. This is when the story reaches an emotional climax. Its
thought-provoking ending reveals that the family only appears to have
everything because, if love is really all that counts, they have
nothing that matters at all.
Release
date: 24th June 2010
Rating:
MA 15+
Length:
120 minutes
Cast:
Tilda Swinton, Flavio Parenti, Edoardo
Gabbriellini, Alba Rohrwacher, Pippo Delbono, Maria Paiato, Diane
Fleri, Waris Ahluwalia, Gabriele Ferzetti, Marisa Berenson
Screenplay:
Barbara Alberti, Ivan Cotroneo, Walter Fasano,
Luca Guadagnino
Based
on a story by Luca Guadagnino
Director:
Luca Guadagnino
|
