I Am Love

I Am Love is a melodramatic wet dream. It seeps with color and life, it brims with culture and languid taste. It's immediately gorgeous and creative--if it had had a shit storyline, I would still have had to recommend it based upon the artistic acheivment. However, the story is pretty damn good. It tells of a family, Italian, and the mother of successful children at the head of a sort of empire. She is played by Tilda Swinton (Burn After Reading, Michael Clayton) and she is the heart of the story. She speaks Italian with a Russian accent, and she is an outsider to this world. She should be at the head of it, but she is not fully Italian and will never be wholly integral to the family. She falls in love with her son's good friend, and they have an affair. Swinton so perfectly evokes a character who is rediscovering what it is to be herself, and not have to live under the guidelines of a prestigious family. It's one of the best movies of 2010.
I Am Love: ★★★★