Alaska Employment Law

Tilda Swinton’s latest film is I Am Love, in Italian with subtitles. This story begins in winter and transpires mostly in Milan. The film takes its time gaining narrative traction, and for a while I had no idea where it was going, except that it involved the stupendously rich Recchi family, owner of textile mills. Events unfold at a birthday banquet for Edoardo, the managing director of the business, who has reached the age when he wishes to hand the reins to other family members, namely his son Tancredi and his grandson Edo. Managing this sumptuous white-gloved affair is Tancredi’s wife Emma (played by Swinton), a slender, calm and oddly uninvolved presence. Emma is Russian, not Italian, and she appears to go through her comfortably opulent life as a bit of an outsider. Yet she is warm, as well. When, later, her daughter Betta confides that she has fallen in love with a woman, Emma is both caring and interested.

Into this mix comes Antonio, a young friend of Edo’s and a chef of remarkable gifts. Antonio and Edo want to open a restaurant together in the Italian hills, well off the beaten path. Summer comes; Emma is seduced by food (prawns, actually). And Emma and Antonio are drawn to each other, and then one thing leads to another. Emma finds her happiness, and her great unhappiness. She envies her daughter. She disappoints Edo, tragically.

I Am Love is in some ways closer to opera than film – much of what happens in it is deliberately grand, symbolic and overdone, and (particularly at the end) loud. There is a love scene that could be sponsored by Mutual of Omaha, and John Adams’ score is well, operatic, even, sometimes, bombastic. The film has garnered some very favorable reviews, but there are those who will, with some justification, find nothing more in it but D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley and her lover. It’s a memorable film, beautiful to look at, but perhaps not for everyone. Be patient and consider approaching the film as opera.

Finally, don’t leave when the credits start to run. It’s not over.