When Tilda Swinton made an appearance at a film festival in Houston last year she premiered I Am Love or Io Sono L’Amore, which is the original title of this 2024 Italian film. I Am Love works its own particular brand of magic best in an art house setting or in previews to appreciative audiences like the one just mentioned.

I Am Love offers visual and musical flourishes that demand attention. It’s earthy and lusty but at the same time melodramatic and overwrought. Trapped in the world of upper class order that she married into Emma Recchi (Swinton) finds herself drawn into an affair with the business partner of one of her sons. The sexuality explodes in one lovemaking scene.

Swinton holds her own in the sense of an older actress burning up the screen with nudity. Think of what Helen Mirren can do. Plus Swinton’s Emma has the only real intricate characterization on display here. At different times during the movie she’s speaking Italian, Russian or English; Swinton is a triple threat.

I Am Love wants the viewer to dwell in this almost operatic sense of heightened reality. During the closing scenes the director cranks up the orchestrated music in such a manner as to fine tune calibrate the emotions on display. I Am Love opens exclusively this weekend at the Angelika Film Center.

- Michael Bergeron