I Am Love

Despite Swinton's powerful performance, Luca Guadagnino proved it a mistake to put narrative at the service of technique.

What is the origin and focal point of cinematographic art? It's a question that seems rhetorical, but which, for me, is fundamental to understanding the problems of this film. Why? Because for me, the essential point of cinema, what is most important, is to tell a story. This means that aesthetics, style and art must serve the narrative, not the other way around. And what this film does is, precisely, use a narrative for an exercise in aesthetics and style.

The script had everything to work, with a dramatic story that, despite not bringing anything new (there are lots of movies about adulteries, mature women d...

Emma (Tilda Swinton) left an ordinary life in Russia to move to Milan where she married local industrialist Recchi (Pippo Delbono) and had three kids. She likes the life and its privilege, but shes hardly challenged nor fulfilled. Their daughter Elisabetta lives in Nice and two sons Edo (Flavio Parenti) and Gianluca (Mattie Zachary) are at home with their parents. Its the former son who has plans to set up a restaurant with his accomplished chef and best friend Antonio (Flavio Parenti) and showing a parental interest in her sons work starts to make Emma realise just what she has been missing as she embarks on a passionate affair with the young man. With the two men working cheek by jowl its only a matter of time before that secret comes out...