While it might be highly lauded in the art world, “I Am Love” is not one for the masses. The film might not appeal to the average audience because of its slow, majestic fragility. Where “Love” might lose them is with its assertion of how lyrical and poetic it believes itself to be.
Opening with images of elegant statues and beautiful buildings set to a thrill-inducing score, Luca Guadagnino’s “I Am Love” promises extravagance and grandeur. In presenting classical images, the film sets the stage for something epic. It’s a self-conscious, self-proclaimed act; the retro credits in Vogue-like-typeface recall an earlier era, likening the film to a masterpiece, but of our time.
A family drama just short of Shakespearean proportions, “Love” begins with a birthday celebration in honor of Edoardo Senior, patriarch of the Recchi clan, attended by both family and close friends. The moment seems opportune then to announce his retirement from the family’s lucrative textile company and his successor to which, shockingly, he names two: his son Tancredi (Pippo Delbono), and grandson Edo (Flavio Parenti).
Mediator within this power-play-in-the-making is the masterful Tilda Swinton as Emma Recchi, a Russian emigre turned Italian socialite, and wife to Tancredi. The couple has three children, with only two of interest, (the previously mentioned) Edoardo Junior and Elisabetta (Alba Rohrwacher). Edo is the model of beauty, athleticism and morality, while Betta is notable for her artistry and covert lesbianism. It’s a portrait of a dignified but controlled family: The Recchis, as noted by Edoardo Senior, are “unbeatable.”
Edo’s once-competitor and now house-chef, a scruffy Antonio awakens Emma to a life beyond the muted beiges of the Recchi household with his cooking. With seduction imminent, also looming is the eventual dilution of the family company, and Edo’s marriage with a sweet girl named Eva whom no one seems to like or care about.
Emma might seem as relegated to the periphery as her daughter-in-law-to-be. She’s cared for and pacified in the most loving way, clothed by husband and maid. Yet an incipient desire for something else surfaces when she discovers Elisabetta is a lesbian, and her reaction morphs from shocked to intrigued. When cooking with Antonio, too, her excitement alights when literally playing with fire.
The symbolism is obvious, and while the language is subtle, the film sometimes renders its material excessively sentimental, with an all-too exacting camera and score. The script often loses its gravity in heavy-handed metaphors that take refuge in commonplace themes in the vein of Man v. Nature and Rich v. Poor.
Balancing subtlety with over-expressiveness, “Love” verges on the overwrought, especially in crosscutting between images of flowers and Antonio and Emma’s lovemaking. What is most important in the film intentionally remains unsaid, and at its heart is a slow decay contained beneath beautiful veneers.
Much of the film’s success is anchored upon Swinton, who impressively employs both Italian and Russian in her role. But while the Italian of Michelangelo Antonioni’s films holds a warm vibrancy in its flavor, the Italian of “I Am Love” is a softly subtle and quiet language, as cool and contained as its characters. Less subtle and contained though, is the film’s self-awareness: It’s a lovely film, though much too cognizant of its own loveliness.