'I am Love" is an ode to Tilda Swinton: Once she appears before the camera, directors such as Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino want to keep gazing at her forever. According to the production notes, Guadagnino says the project had been in the works for 16 years, and during that time he had never once thought of casting anyone else but Swinton.
The film may as well have been called "I am Tilda." The story is almost beside the point — what anchors it and defines its spirit is Swinton, and when she's not in the frame (which isn't very often), the film takes on a different, far less radiant sheen. Is it wise for a director to stake so much on the presence of one actress? Guadagnino doesn't seem to think so. In this sense, he and his film are perhaps stereotypically Italian: Hang everything on the centerpiece madonna, and leave the rest to God.
And Swinton's role (at first) may be described as madonna with a vengeance. Emma (Swinton) is a Russian emigre, married to Milanese industrialist Tancredi Recchi (Pippo Delbono) and mother to three grown-up offspring. The family (one of the oldest in Milan) is firmly ensconced in the values of the haute bourgeoisie, and Emma spends her days scrutinizing the seating arrangements for the next dinner party, planning weekly menus and catering to her tyrannical, terrifying mother-in-law (Marisa Berenson).