“Sensual” is a word that film critics often overuse, but it is one that is vague and when used, rarely fits the material. Is it the classy way of saying “sexy?” Or something more? Because if there’s one word that can describe Luca Guadagino’s ravishing “I Am Love,” it’s sensual. And it’s not just because of the sex, but it’s more like the texture of the piece, the overall aesthetic feeling it imparts, and the way it weaves its story, through editorial compositions that titillate the senses in truly, well, sensual ways. “I Am Love” definitely casts its spell on you.
The picture takes place around the beginning of the new millennium, although there’s really nothing to suggest that in the movie except for the fact that everyone is incredibly wealthy in ways that they probably aren’t today — but it does have a timeless, classic mien to it. We’re introduced to this affluent Italian family without much to go on. The family is run, it seems, by the Russian expat matriarch Emma (Tilda Swinton), who is nervously micromanaging a large family dinner at the movie’s start. As the plot slowly, but elegantly unfolds we’re left to observe and then deduce the relationships on our own (“Oh, that’s his wife; that’s the daughter,” etc. will be your inner monologue for the first few minutes of the movie). At the dinner it is announced that Emma’s husband Tancredi (Pippo Delbono) and their son Edoardo (Flavio Parenti) will take over the family business (they run a fabric company).
As far as plot goes, this set-up promises more than is ever delivered, really. The old man who formerly ran the company dies and Emma and Tancredi’s daughter goes off to college, with Emma feeling lonely and unloved. From the tone of the film, the collection of austere images and very rich people leading very tortured lives, you get the sensation that the movie will be a very pretty-looking melodrama. And indeed it is sumptuous to look at on every frame. But it reveals itself as such after a fair amount of time, during which we’ve become intoxicated by the opulence the film has to offer, in its images, costumes, characters (this isn’t a criticism, it’s good to be drunk on “I Am Love”).
The melodrama, as it were, presents itself in the form of (what else?) a steamy Latin chef. Edoardo, looking to the future and the possible sale of the family fabric company, wants to diversify his portfolio by investing in his friend Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini) and the restaurant they plan to open together. Antonio has cooked at the family’s marbled estate before, but Emma starts to take a stronger interest in the chef. Soon, as you’d imagine in these kind of things, the bored aristocrat falls for the scrappy Latin chef, and things get pretty hot-and-heavy.
But it’s not just the shocking Euro-nudity that will have you fanning yourself during the sex scenes, it’s the way that Guadagino puts these scenes together, the combination of the jaw-dropping visuals, the equally gorgeous music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Davis, and the uncanny way that, through a skillful (but not over-intellectualized) combination of the images, editing, and sound, you get a true, tactile sense of what their passion is really like, so that you not only feel as though you’re there, watching and smelling and partaking in their love, but that you feel it, too. The film ends on another crescendo of sensation that leaves you breathless, too — these scenes are evocative and everything cinema is supposed to mean.
Guadagino sets things up beautifully and there are indeed a few quite shocking twists in the film, with the exterior coldness of the characters mimicked by the gilded photography. There are some of-the-moment flourishes, like a brief section devoted to globalism (complete with a small role from “The Life Aquatic” actor Waris Singh Ahluwalia), but the politics of the film aren’t all that important, and neither is the time/place setting. It’s more about these people, their complicated lives, and the beautiful ways in which we can see them, gliding around their mansions or eating wonderful foods. But with all the fluid sumptuousness, there is an hollow sensation creeping in there too, and at two and a half hours, this picture certainly will not be for mainstream audiences. In fact, we’re pretty sure this is a film that may even divide some arthouse critics.
But anytime the movie’s overt style seems to get in the way of the emotional connection to the film, one of these sequences, like the closing sequence or the sex scenes, will occur, and totally snap you back into not only caring about the characters. First and foremost, “I Am Love” is something that you watch. It’s too gorgeous not too and the storytelling is too visual. It’s a very deliberate looker. But through some completely wonderful filmmaking and technical virtuosity, “I Am Love” often becomes something more, something you feel, something downright, well, sensual. [A-]