Love Is All You Need

Ida is a Danish woman near the end of her successful chemotherapy treatment. She gets home early and finds her husband Leif having sex with young Thilde. She is in shock when she crashes into Philip Saunders (Pierce Brosnan) at the airport parking. She is on her way to her daughter Astrid's wedding in Italy. Phillip turns out to be the father of Astrid's fiancée Patrick. He is bitter and closed off after the death of his wife. Ida tries to keep the situation secret from Astrid and then Leif shows up at the wedding with Thilde. The wedding includes gay worker Alessandro who has a crush on Patrick, Astrid's injured brother Kenneth returning from the military, Philip's rude flirtatious sister-in-law Benedikte and her bitter suffering daughter.

Ida is a compelling character and Trine Dyrholm does a nice job. I like her story. Pierce Brosnan is a bit of a Hollywood distraction but I understand his use. Eventually, I got used to him and their relationship is good romance. There are a lot of crazy relatives going off in that wedding and a couple of them could have less screen time. There's no reason to spend so much time with Benedikte and her daughter. They are one-dimensional comedic side characters. Ida's struggles make this a good romance despite a few too many dramatic developments at the wedding.

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 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.

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 think the Italian review above is very harsh - what do we go to see films for? To be entertained and moved emotionally in at least one way. I laughed, cried, smiled and thought this was a great way to spend two hours. It is not pretentious or highbrow but that is good in my opinion - the locations are good on the eye, music enjoyable and a few interesting characters. Whilst it may not be Brosnan's most challenging role he is a likable guy and character and does portray a man with baggage, emotional issues and regret over his relationship with his son. many people will recognise some of the issues in this film, so lighten up in Italy and just regard some films as light entertainment - nothing wrong with that.