Director Luca Guadagnino’s sumptuous European family melodrama I Am Love is a meticulous construction that depicts the turbulent, often passionate struggles of the fictional Recchis. An old-school Italian dynasty that boasts power, centuries-old wealth, and reputation, Guadagnino elicits a specific feeling of upper-crust angst from each of the participating actors, not least Tilda Swinton, while the film itself, from a technical standpoint, practically bursts with love, an alternately violent, dramatic, cruel, punishing, and freeing emotion.
I Am Love distinctly evokes a particular brand of aristocratic opulence that references such rich cinematic forebears as Luchino Visconti, Louis Malle, and Luis Buñuel, all of whom regularly took long, hard looks at the monied elite. The presence of Marisa Berenson, who worked with Visconti on Death in Venice, even further fortifies this very formal feeling.