Den skaldede frisør

Love Is All You Need is a wedding, romance, and family movie from Denmark mostly taking place in Italy. It is about solving the riddles within yourself, not necessarily succeeding, but at least acknowledging them.

The good. Superb Italian panoramas. Fascinating and touching story with a lot of depth. Very realistic. Solidly built scenario with interesting twists and turns. Excellent background. Perfect ending. Nicely romantic with a few laughs. Well grounded. No clichés.

The actors. Trine Dyrholm is absolutely fantastic, beautiful and compelling. Pierce Brosnan, while not playing too far from his usual roles, is just great. And I have to mention the work of Paprika Steen as the annoying, mean, and self-centered aunt/sister-in-law.

The bad. I can't thing of anything. That's how much I appreciated the flick.

The ugly. Nothing.

The result. Something much different from Hollywood's romantic films. A true breath of fresh air. A must for everyone, to the exception of those not interested in romance or family conflicts.

Diane and I saw this, to me interesting but to Diane delightful, movie this afternoon at Paradiso in Perth. I found the initial first-half of the movie fairly unnerving because I am a total coward at movies in all their aspects including domestic difficulties and this movie had them in spades; having said that I found the entire movie engaging and very watchable with no "dead" spots anywhere in the film.

The movie is composed of viewer looks into the lives of all the principal characters but centering around the mother of the groom and the father of the bride. The larger family all have their pieces to add to this bubbling pot of individuals who all seem to have significant parts to play as the principals go through the steps of their routine. Not to be overly trite about the metaphor but speaking of dance it plays a larger than expected role in the movie or at least to me.

This is a lovely movie and one that should be watched by any person whose mind is stable enough to appreciate good story telling without the need for guns, killing and the mindlessness of the normal Hollywood dross.

I am very surprised to see how many people thought this is a feel-good , crowd-pleaser movie. To me it is the exact opposite: a very well done hard movie that explores all the kinds of relationships in today's world. So you see the cheater with a wife with cancer (a few names of political figures in USA come to mind), the gay who tries to fight his gayness, the mother who does not love the daughter, the man who still mourns his loss and does not pay attention to what he has, the son who wants to please the distant father, and so on. In a way a very sad, gut-wrenching movie. Now in this human-heart exploration the director, I think, threw in also the visual difference between a gray Copenhagen and a very colorful, beautiful Sorrento: this might be the way to suggest the difference between reality and want we WANT to believe. The only predictable part of the movie is the ending ... and may be even this it's Mrs Bier's way to tell us that in spite of all the terrible things we saw, there is always hope for all of us! I enjoyed very much this great movie. The only thing I did not like is the Englis translated title. The original title (The Bald Hairdresser) is much better in my opinion.

The brief preview I read of this film described it as an antidote to "shrill, soulless Hollywood romantic comedies" with the power to "restore your faith in the entire genre". I was unsure whether it would live up to such high praise, but decided to give it a go.

The film follows the story of Ida, a lovely lady recovering from chemotherapy and the antics of her unappreciative husband Leif. Separately we follow her daughter Astrid as she prepares to wed her fiancé Patrick in a beautiful secluded grove in Sorrento. But marriage is not portrayed in this film as a straightforward or predictable process, and hints of challenges soon begin to emerge, both for the engaged couple and for Ida herself.

My attention was gripped more than anything by the characters themselves. All confused to some degree, I found them likable to a person - even Leif, whose "activities" were less than admirable. Their hidden depths are revealed through their struggles. I'd like to give a special nod here to Pierce Brosnan's Philip. Emotionally constricted from the start, his defensiveness and wariness gradually ease to reveal a man of real depth and warmth.

The photography in this film is gorgeous, but there again, it's only important as the backdrop to the characters' personal development. It's also a very humorous film in places, and I found the two hours flew by. 10/10.

Love is All You Need is a real crowd pleaser, feel good type of movie. It may not be very original and ground breaking but it is expertly put together and will make the viewer leave the cinema feeling good and uplifted.

Somehow, it is reminiscent of Mamma Mia!, specially with Pierce Brosnan's presence in both movies. Here, he plays a successful businessman whose son is marrying the daughter of a Swedish hairdresser with an unfaithful husband. The wedding is set in romantic Sorrento and unexpected events happen which keep the film continuously interesting. Brosnan is particularly good and this film has the potential to become a big hit.