I Am Love (film)

I Am Love
Original poster
Directed by	Luca Guadagnino
Written by	Luca Guadagnino Barbara Alberti
Starring	Tilda Swinton Gabriele Ferzetti Marisa Berenson
Cinematography	Yorick Le Saux
Editing by	Walter Fasano
Studio	First Sun
Distributed by	Mikado Film
Release date(s)	September 5, 2009 (2009-09-05)
Running time	114 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Italian
Budget	$10 million
Box office	$10,397,974

I Am Love (Italian: Io sono l'amore) is a 2009 Italian film directed by Luca Guadagnino set around 2000 in Milan. The film follows a haute bourgeoisie family through changing times and fortunes, and its disruption by the force of passion. The cast is led by Tilda Swinton as Emma Recchi. Co-producers Swinton and Guadagnino developed the film together over an 11-year period.

The film premiered in the United States at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and premiered in both the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival.

The title is taken from a line from the aria La mamma morta, which is explored in the film Philadelphia (starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington), a scene of which Emma is watching while in bed with her husband, during the film. The film's soundtrack uses pre-existing compositions by John Adams.

Plot summary

The wealthy Recchi family are first and second-generation textile manufacturers in Milan. The story of the family's decline develops via subtle means, starting with the opening credits, which show Milan covered in snow. The first cracks in the family facade appear in the first scene, a formal dinner party arranged by Tancredi Recchi (Pippo Delbono) and his elegant wife Emma (Swinton) for Tancredi's still-formidable but ailing father, Edoardo Sr. (Gabriele Ferzetti), patriarch and founder of the family business, who is celebrating what is clearly his last birthday. As the many servants bustle about, the family are somewhat taken aback by the news that Tancredi and Emma's eldest son, Edoardo Jr. (Flavio Parenti), has lost a race that very day. The Recchis are not accustomed to losing anything. The second tiny "crack" appears when Tancredi and Emma's daughter Elisabetta (Alba Rohrwacher) presents her grandfather with one of her artworks - only it's a photograph rather than a painting, as in the past. The formidable patriarch is disappointed by this lesser offering, but encouraged by his glamorous wife Allegra "Rori" Recchi (Marisa Berenson), he makes a weak stab at glossing it over.

Edoardo Jr. arrives from his lost race accompanied by his girlfriend, Eva, of the prominent Ugolini family, who he apparently plans to marry. Edoardo's young adult siblings, Gianluca (Mattia Zaccaro) and Elisabetta, complain of yet again being served "ukha," Edoardo's favorite dish - a special soup his mother Emma, who is Russian by birth, made for him in childhood. We hear bits of Russian spoken. During the meal, the grandfather announces he is passing the family business to his son, Tancredi, who has long worked with him, and also, unexpectedly, to Edoardo Jr.

During the evening, Emma withdraws from the family circle to her own room. She is clearly restless. Her sons are grown, and Elisabetta is off studying art in London. Later, Emma discovers that Elisabetta is a lesbian - another small crack in the facade - but keeps this a secret from her husband, with whom she appears to have somewhat distant relations.

Later during the birthday dinner, Edoardo Jr. receives a surprise visit from Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), the chef who defeated him in the race earlier that day. Antonio brings a beautiful cake as a gift, and Edoardo, flattered by the gesture, introduces him to his mother. Emma and Antonio are possibly subtly attracted to each other, but it is Edoardo who makes plans with Antonio to open a restaurant together on some property Antonio owns in the hilly countryside. Some days later, when Edoardo visits Antonio at this site, there are indications that the two young men may be engaged in a homosexual affair.

Months pass. Emma is having dinner at Antonio's restaurant, and her attraction is stoked while eating a prawn dish he prepares for her. She takes a trip to Nice and stops in San Remo where she knows she may encounter Antonio. She does spot him, follows him, has a "chance encounter," then goes with him to his house in the hills above the city, and their affair begins.

Meanwhile, in London, Edoardo Jr. struggles as his father and other family members seek to sell the family business to foreign investors. The family will be "richer than ever," as Elisabetta says contemptuously, but this sale, along with the death of the patriarch, is yet another sign that the heart has gone out of the family.

On her second trip to San Remo, under the pretext of discussing a menu for the formal dinner she will host for the foreign investors who are buying the Recchi family business, Emma spends the day with Antonio, and the two enjoy passionate lovemaking. Emma tells Antonio how Tancredi met her during a trip to Russia, hunting art treasures, and we get the impression Emma feels she has been just one more decorative object in Tancredi's collection. Antonio cuts Emma's blonde hair, a long lock of which falls unnoticed to the terrace, where Edoardo Jr. finds it during his own subsequent visit, but does not (yet) realize its true significance.

On the night of the dinner for the investors at the Recchi villa, ensconced below stairs in the kitchen, Antonio prepares "ukha" - whose preparation Emma has described to Antonio during one of their intimate moments. It is fraught with significance - the dish Emma used to make for Edoardo Jr. as a child, the outward sign of the mother-son bond. When the servers place this soup before him, Edoardo, recalling the lock of blonde hair, instantly realizes his mother is having an affair with Antonio. He leaves the dinner table in a fury. Emma follows him outside to the swimming pool and tries to talk to him, but in pulling away from her outstretched hand he loses his balance, falls, strikes his head on the sharp concrete edge, sustains a cerebral hemorrhage, and dies.

After the funeral, Tancredi tries to console Emma, but she tells him that she is in love with Antonio. Tancredi is incensed. Emma rushes back to her villa, changes her dress and leaves. Her housekeeper is distraught. Before she leaves, she exchanges a knowing glance with her daughter, who it appears understands her mother's desire to follow her heart. Meanwhile, Edoardo Jr.'s fiancee Eva, who is pregnant, clutches her abdomen as she enters the entryway with the shocked family members; she is having a miscarriage^{[citation needed]}. During the final credits, Emma and Antonio are seen lying together inside a cave.

Production

Many of the scenes were shot in Villa Necchi Campiglio, a 1930s mansion in the heart of Milan designed by architect Piero Portaluppi. Tilda Swinton states in the DVD commentary to the movie that the villa was perfect because they were looking for a house “that was part palace, part museum, and part prison.” The funeral and the subsequent scene were filmed in the Cimitero Monumentale di Milano.

The soundtrack is made up entirely of existing pieces by modern classical composer John Adams. Swinton states on the commentary that the film was actually created around the pieces of music, and that they went to Adams after finishing the film and asked to use his music, which he had not allowed before. They were relieved when he liked the film and said yes.

The food and meals in the movie were inspired by the cuisine of Carlo Cracco, the owner of the legendary Cracco Peck restaurant in Milan.

Cast

• Tilda Swinton as Emma Recchi
• Flavio Parenti as Edoardo Recchi Jr.
• Edoardo Gabbriellini as Antonio Biscaglia
• Alba Rohrwacher as Elisabetta Recchi
• Pippo Delbono as Tancredi Recchi
• Maria Paiato as Ida Roselli
• Diane Fleri as Eva Ugolini
• Waris Ahluwalia as Shai Kubelkian
• Marisa Berenson as Allegra Recchi
• Gabriele Ferzetti as Edoardo Recchi Sr.

Reception

Critical response

I Am Love was met with generally positive reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 82% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 110 reviews, with an average score of 7.2/10. The critical consensus is: "It stumbles into melodrama, but I Am Love backs up its flamboyance with tremendous visual style and a marvelous central performance from Tilda Swinton." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a "generally favorable" score of 79 based on 32 reviews. Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four stars, praising Swinton's performance and saying "I Am Love is an amazing film. It is deep, rich, human. It is not about rich and poor, but about old and new. It is about the ancient war between tradition and feeling." The Washington Post's Ann Hornaday said the film was "carefully composed and framed, gorgeously appointed, superbly choreographed and accompanied by a thrilling musical score, it would no doubt provide rewarding fodder for critics of art, design, fashion, dance and music." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film three out of five stars, saying "It's a high-IQ picture – there are few enough of those – and it's fascinating, if a little bloodless. A gorgeously costumed and styled piece of work."

Margaret Pomeranz of At the Movies gave the film four and a half out of five stars and said "This is a beautiful film, moving, stylish with a sensual romance at its heart." Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times praised Swinton's performance, saying "Swinton is one of the finest actresses working in contemporary cinema, but Guadagnino, who developed the project with her in mind, has created a film that literally luxuriates in her talents." Empire's Damon Wise gave the film four out of five stars and said "Though it drags a little, this stately film never descends into formula, using John Adams' score to great effect and boldly utilising the flourishes of '70s Italian genre cinema (zooms, handheld camera) to create something original, refreshing and really very moving."

Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a grade of "C+", saying "O sexytime in the countryside! O many wardrobe changes! The film is almost deliriously stylish, which helps mask the silliness. But the bellowing music, by John Adams, is infuriatingly intrusive — which undoes the visual good." Mark Demetrius of Filmink gave the film a negative review, stating "Despite an elegant and impressive visual style, the narrative of this slow-paced film is uninteresting and full of cliché." New York Film Critics Online called the work the Best Foreign Film of 2010. Quentin Tarantino listed it as one of his favorite 20 films of 2010.

The film was nominated at the 68th Golden Globe Awards for Best Foreign Film, however, it lost to Denmark's In a Better World. Costume designer Antonella Cannarozzi was nominated on January 5, 2011, for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design for her work in the film, however she lost to Colleen Atwood for Alice in Wonderland.

Box office

As of December 2, 2010 (2010 -12-02), the film has grossed $5,005,465 in North America and as of November 28, 2010 (2010 -11-28) has grossed $5,392,509 in other territories, making $10,397,974 in total.

External links

• Official website
• I Am Love at the Internet Movie Database
• I Am Love at AllRovi
• I Am Love at Box Office Mojo
• I Am Love at Rotten Tomatoes