I AM LOVE

I’ve just added a new movie to my list of favorites. I AM LOVE is a great film.  The movie came out last June, so many of you probably have seen it or at least heard about it if you run with the right crowd.  I watched it last week and I’m still thinking about it.  The key word here is ‘watched’ VS ‘saw’.  You watch a movie at home.  The word ‘saw’ is used when discussing movie viewing as, “I saw a great movie.”  That phases means you were able to go to a local movie theater, purchase a ticket and actually be seated to view the film.  That’s not possible for us.  Ok, that maybe an exaggeration.  We do have a car, actually we have two of them, so it is possible for us to drive to a movie theater.  However, the closest one is thirty miles away and caters to the crowd that is interested in the latest action flick, family animation or sophomoric humor.  I AM LOVE would not have been on the theater distribution list for our area!  I fact, I believe it only opened in a couple of major cities and ran for a second.  So even if you live in a metropolis, if you blinked you may have missed it. 

I AM LOVE is all about design!

It’s an Italian melodrama starring Tilda Swinton and she’s fantastic in the lead role.  I have never had an opinion one way or the other of Tilda Swinton; other than I think of her as being an accomplished actress and that she looks a lot like Conan O’Brien, which sort of ruins her movies for me.  Add to that, I AM LOVE is a foreign film with subtitles which I might have avoided.  Not that I dislike foreign films with subtitles, but I have to really want to see them to make the effort.  I don’t mind thinking or being challenged by a film, it’s just that I don’t want to work too hard, and sometimes subtitles can do just that.  It’s distracting and I worry l may miss something.  But, that was not the case with I AM LOVE.  The film is really about the images and the dialogue is somewhat secondary.

I was a little nervous.  I have a reputation that I can’t seem to get rid of with some of our friends.  They claim my film picks are to often questionable.  Of course they’re wrong.  Back in the days of Blockbuster, our local mom and pop video store did not have the best selection.  To tell the truth, it sucked.  Every time we had guests it was my job to go rent the movies.  And most of the time we have guests, it’s around the holidays.  So you can image that the selection was worse than usual.  Now you would think that since the others were too lazy to go to the movie rental store themselves, they would at least be respectful of my limited choices and not be over critical.  But no!  I am still living down the selection of Deception starring Harry Hamlin and that was fifteen years ago!

So I was a little concerned when my much awaited Netflix envelope arrived with I AM LOVE.

Now that the days of video stores are gone, it’s my job to manage the Netflix list.  And of course C is always complaining that considering the amount of films that are released, and knowing I have over three hundred titles on our Netflix list, why is it that we only get bad movies or things he’s never heard of.

 “What’s this,” asked C as he opened the Netflix envelop?  He always says something like that when he has never heard of one of my film choices.  He then usually scans the short synopsis on the flap, obviously looking to see if the film features Harry Hamlin. 

It could be that I get most of my information from the New York Times, but I really like to think it’s because I’m just a little ‘higher’ brow. 

Either way I fully expected that within five minutes into I AM LOVE; C would have jumped up from the sofa and said something to the effect, “You can finish watching this.  I’m going to clean out the Spam folders on my email accounts.”

However, not only did he intently watch the film, but he seemed to actually enjoy it. 

If you are interested in a beautifully filmed movie with great acting, wonderful wardrobe and art direction watch I AM LOVE.  It’s Italy…  The scenery, the food, the clothes, and especially the attitude.  Also, not once does Harry Hamlin appear.