Tilda Swinton (impressively in flawless Italian) plays the wife of a wealthy textile manufacturer, finding herself forgotten by her husband and pushed aside by priorities over the family business. When her son introduces her to his business partner, the chef Antonio, she finds the attention and spirit so lacking in her marriage. As with most films dealing with infidelity, I Am Love offers little in the way of surprises, and tells us what we have been told many times before: infidelity has its consequences.
My main issue with this film is its general Italianness. We get a solid 2 hours of art-for-arts sake filmmaking, with the focus puller presumably asleep. Add a score that on its own merit is sublime, but overlaid onto this film is purely out of place, and we’re left with a very uncomfortable experience. Several moments were greeted by exasperated titters from the audience, and the abrupt finale and closing credits were received with a mixture of relief, confusion and disappointment.
I initially thought that I’d like this film – I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve seen in Italian prior to this – but it seems that times have changed. In 2007, Tarantino said "New Italian cinema is just depressing. Recent films I've seen are all the same. They talk about boys growing up, or girls growing up, or couples having a crisis, or vacations of the mentally impaired." I’m inclined to agree with him. It seems like Guadagnino’s film is trying so very hard to be reminiscent of classic Italian cinema that it forgets to entertain, or even to *shock * offer us something new and exciting.
I’m sure this film will be seen by a wider audience in the English-speaking world due to the inclusion of Swinton at the head of the cast list, but I fear that instead of turning people on to foreign-language films, I Am Love has the power to do quite the opposite.
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