A lavish Italian melodrama with echoes of The Godfather and The Leopard, I Am Love is sweeping, operatic and more than a little silly.
The latter is no fault of Tilda Swinton as the glacial trophy wife of a rich Milanese businessman whose structured life starts to crumble when she falls for her son’s chef friend.
It’s more down to overblown plotting, intrusive scoring and Luca Guadagnino’s stately direction.
The art direction here is undoubtedly flawless but it’s tough not to titter when shots of bees pollinating plants provide a ham-fisted metaphor for Tilda and her beau (Edoardo Gabbriellini) engaging in some alfresco rutting.
