Love Is All You Need

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.

I saw this film as part of the Ghent filmfestival 2012. Usually I've little interest in feelgood movies, and particularly not when wedding festivities are an integral element. But the synopsis in the filmfestival brochure had that little something that made me book tickets, and I'm not disappointed. That does not mean that important questions of life and death are discussed, but rather that it proves solid entertainment for the whole duration (nearly 2 hours), no more no less. You will forget about the movie later on, to remember only that it was pleasant and amusing throughout.

The story line develops steadily, and all important characters get time to be introduced to the audience. In other words, we really get the chance to know them. These introductions are spread evenly, and luckily not condensed in the first quarter.

Center of the proceedings is hairdresser Ida, who just returned from hospital after a cancer treatment. She is wearing a wig as a result, hence the original title "The bald hairdresser" (possibly for commercial reasons translated to "Love is all you need"). Still not certain about the ultimate success of the cancer treatment, she returns home. There she finds her husband Leif with the much younger Tilde (from "accounting") doing it on the couch. Ida does not take it lightly, and a divorce seems imminent.

As her daughter Astrid will be getting married in Italy within a few days, she travels alone to the airport. In her nerves to park the car in order to catch her flight, she collides with the car of a business man in vegetables (Philip). He happens to be the father of the groom (Patrick), and on his way to the same marriage. This coincidence seems a bit of a stretch as well as statistically impossible. Luckily it is the only thing in this film that I consider far fetched. Combining that encounter with the fact (we learn that later on) that he is a widower, allows us to predict the main story line from that moment on. However... It does not happen that way, at least not exactly.

Apart from the developments around the relationship between Ida and Philip, there are ample opportunities for sub-plots and new characters to be introduced along the line. All this gets gradually interwoven in the story, without giving us a feeling that the film makers are overdoing it. The time that the film takes, much more than the average 90 minutes, offers sufficient room for parallel story lines to develop and come to a (sometimes happy, sometimes not so happy) conclusion. The script mixes all these many ingredients in an ingenious way, and stays believable from start to finish (aforementioned car accident being the only exception).

I don't think it makes any sense to delve deeper in the scenario. Which is next to impossible anyway without revealing how the story develops, and without introducing spoilers in the text. That would take away much of the surprise, a definite no-no, since surprises are the main ingredients out of which this film is made.

Apart from superb casting and acting that we are allowed to witness, the story line (better: story lines) suffice to keep the viewer interested all the time in what will happen next. I could not spot any dull moments, in other words fully qualified entertainment for the whole family. Expecting no more than what the label says, I scored it deservedly with a maximum (5) for the audience award when leaving the theater.

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.

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.

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.