I Am Love, was co-written and directed by Luca Guadagnino and produced by and starring Tilda Swinton. Watching this lush, operatic Italian drama about a clannish family of wealthy Milanese industrialists is like suddenly being exposed to a full orchestra when you have become accustomed to listening to the plaintive sawing of a lone violinist. It’s an exquisite, all-enveloping feast of sensual pleasures. It’s almost certainly the most elegant piece of cinema you’ll see this year. It is melodrama as celebration rather than as guilty pleasure.

Guadagnino and Swinton worked together on this project for 12 years and this long period of development was not wasted. Every element of the film gels, from the superlative score from John Adams to the intimate sound design to the liquid cinematography by Yorick Le Saux that floats and flows, capturing the coded glances and covert gestures that keep the Recchi household machine running. Most impressive, however, are the meticulously sculpted performances. Swinton is magnificent as Emma Recchi, the Russian-born wife of the heir to the Recchi business, Tancredi. The role requires Swinton to act in Russian-accented Italian and in Russian — what’s incredible is not just that she does it but how effortless she makes it seem. Also wonderful are Marisa Berenson, as the formidable Recchi matriarch Allegra and Alba Rohrwacher as Elisabetta, Emma’s daughter and the first of the family to rebel against the constraints of the Recchi name.

Guadagnino’s measured pacing means that initially we don’t even realise that Swinton’s character is the centre of the story. Reserved, somewhat aloof, she seems to be just another polished, precious gem in the Recchi collection. But a fateful encounter with a handsome young chef and his sublime cooking gradually awakens the young girl who has been dormant since Emma left Russia to be Tancredi’s wife. A chain of events leads to a shattering tragedy.

Guadagnino references both Visconti and Hitchcock as the saga unfolds, but his voice is original and his vision utterly compelling in its own right.

 

The Times (UK)