I Am Love is a 2009 drama about a Russian woman living with her husband in Italy, a member of a powerful industrial family, who feels unfulfilled until her son’s friend, makes her senses kindle.
Today’s Netflix Pick is a sensational drama about renewed love and costly betrayal. It stars Tilda Swinton and Edoardo Gabbriellini among many others and is a delicious tale in three languages, Italian, Russian, and English, but don’t let that chase you away because honestly, this is a terrifically emotional story with a tremendous lead performance you really need to see. It’s I Am Love and it’s what you’re watching tonight. Here’s why.
THE STORY: Directed by Luca Guadagnino, it centers on Emma Recchi (Swinton), who left her Russian homeland twenty years before to marry and join her husband’s wealthy family in Milan, they in the textile business. She is the mother of three and lives a content life though there is a hollowness to it all the seeps slowly into her existence. Then one day she meets Antonio (Gabbriellini), a highly-skilled chef and friend of her grown son. It takes months, but Emma becomes aroused by the man and on happenstance one afternoon, the two meet again in private and an affair begins. Meanwhile Emma’s husband considers selling the business and the two events have repercussions that ripple through the family.
WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH: Swinton, Swinton, Swinton. One of the most versatile actresses working in the business today, she is breathtaking here in a multi-lingual role that is as sensuous as it is stirring. The juxtaposition of the family’s story and Emma’s passions is part of the lure and the positioning of the story around the emotional webbings of such rather than the luxury of their lifestyles makes it deeply identifiable. It takes no effort to get swept up in the intrigue and romance and yet it is the deeply personal and human story at the core that truly have the most impact. This is an astonishingly powerful movie that is gorgeous to look at and sublimely-acted. Don’t hesitate. It’s streaming on Netflix right now.