Playing at Plimoth Cinema from July 23 to 29
Change is in the wind for the Recchis, a very wealthy and powerful Milanese family. Patriarch, Edoardo Recchi, has built a vast industrial empire and is now passing the business reins to his son and grandson.
This, however, is not the only change in store for the Recchis. Other unexpected business and domestic transformations are also coming.
I Am Love opens with Edoardo’s large and formal family birthday party. Emma Recchi (Tilda Swinton), the Russian-born wife of Edoardo’s son, Tancredi (Pippo Delbono), is seen bustling about managing the affair.
This scene, which sets the stage for the rest of the film, establishes the personalities of the characters and, importantly, the character of the family, itself.
Emma, responsible for overseeing the large staff in the family’s opulent manor, had dutifully spent her years focused on her husband and three beautiful children. Now that Emma’s children have grown and become independent, her changing role takes her to a crossroads in life.
Her husband, Tancredo, is considering opening a chic restaurant with his friend, Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), a gifted chef. It isn’t long before Emma’s world is rocked to its core when she becomes passionately involved with Antonio. The sexual sparks fly and the film takes a Lady Chatterly bent as Emma moves from a sophisticate haut couture socialite to a liberated more bohemian self.
Emma’s awakening unleashes emotional and sexual abandon. She explodes from her circumscribed and structured life and, despite the consequences, risks everything for love without shame or regret. As melodrama requires, the lovers are finally discovered and lives changed, but not in the way you expect.
Swinton conceivedI Am Love with longtime friend and director, Luca Guadagnino, in one of the longest gestations in filmmaking (11 years).
As if the film’s lush clothing, furnishings and other excesses of wealth were not enough, Swinton and Guadagnino hired a well known Italian chef to add sumptuous and beautiful looking food. Swinton takes a note from the film Tom Jones, acting out an almost orgasmic scene eating prawns prepared by Antonio. Swinton called that scene “prawn porn.”
The film is operatic in scope and visually transfixing, with lush cinematography, lavish sets, luxe designer clothing and the beautiful Italian countryside.
This is Swinton’s film. The 50-year-old Academy Award winner is fiercely talented and visually striking. For this role, she had to learn to speak Italian with a Russian accent.
