I Am Love (Italian: Io sono l'amore) is a 2009 Italian film by Luca Guadagnino set at the turn of the millennium in Milan. The film follows the fall of the haute bourgeoisie due to the forces of passion and unconditional love. The cast is led by Tilda Swinton as the main character Emma Recchi.
The film will premiere in the United States at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and premiered in both the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival.
Set in Milan’s upper classes, in the Art Deco villa of a family of great wealth, this is a film about repression and breaking free.
The Recchi family are winners to a man – although the women look a good deal less confident. At a formal lunch party, ailing scion Edoardo Sr (Gabriele Ferzetti) celebrates his birthday by passing the business on to his son, Tancredi (Pippo Delbono), and, unexpectedly, his grandson Edoardo (Flavio Parenti), the beloved heart of the family.
Tancredi’s wife, Emma (Swinton), a Russian émigré, is evidently not entirely at ease: they have another son, Gianluca (Mattia Zaccaro) and a daughter Elizabeth (Alba Rohrwacher) who is an artist, and, it is later revealed, a lesbian.
And, fatefully, during that same evening, Eduardo Jr introduces his mother to his friend Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), a chef, with whom he plans to set up a business.
Later, Emma, facing an empty nest, takes a trip to Sanremo and encounters Antonio there, as Edoardo Jr struggles against his role in the business during a trip to London. Passions flare and tensions rise, and as one thing leads to another, the Recchi family soon realizes everything will change forever.
The new collaboration between Luca Guadagnino, who returns to the big screen after Melissa P., and Tilda Swinton, who is also the film’s producer, conjures up Viscontian ghosts and decadent atmospheres, in a postmodern mix of style and intentions reminiscent of classical cinema.
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