Wow.  Tilda strikes again.  I Am Love is an Italian film about an upper class family in Milan.  The Russian-born Emma (Swinton) has fulfilled her role of wife, mother and hostess to the max until her eldest son’s protege and friend comes into their lives.  A quiet passionate chef, Antonio is immediately drawn to her and their relationship progresses with tragic consequences.

The film is exquisitely shot with utterly beautiful interiors, clothes and countryside, developing from snowy Milan to sunny Sanremo.  The score is melodramatic and builds to enormous crescendos which magnify the intensity of the latter scenes but jar earlier on.

The critics are divided on this one.  It is pure aesthetic pleasure throughout but relies on the viewer to be open minded about Emma’s awakening and subsequent freeing.  I wept, many sniggered.  It’s usually the other way round lately.  An interesting, grown-up film which doesn’t preach.