The estimable filmmaker Susanne Bier might have received the following memo before embarking on LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED.
‘Dear Ms. Bier. We adore your films, particularly the hopeless, despairing ones. IN A BETTER WORLD, BROTHERS and OPEN HEARTS – these are just some of your movies that increase suicide rates in Scandinavian countries amongst impressionable young people. But some such people go out and kill people with guns. We are not suggesting that your films have anything to do with the recent mass murder of young people in Norway. But could not you make something a bit lighter? Forget Dogme 95, hand held camera and the like. You might even consider working with a Hollywood star. Not Halle Berry again, your collaborator on THINGS THAT GOT BURNT IN THE FIRE, she is working on something called MOVIE 43 – sounds cool. Perhaps one of Stellan Skarsgård’s co-stars from MAMMA MIA? Meryl, Julie, even Christine Baranski, though no one remembers CYBILL. Colin is of course busy with GAMBIT and a film with Nicole Kidman. Plus his money’s gone up. He has to have ‘Academy Award winner’ before his name, which would suggest one of your more depressing films. Plus I hear he is doing another BRIDGET JONES film – Darcy with a stammer. No, there’s that other guy, the one who couldn’t sing, though we didn’t notice because he was dubbed into Danish. Him! We could dub him into Danish again – or not? By the way, have you seen MOONSTRUCK? Or UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN with Diane Lane? They might give you some ideas.’
Yes, Ms Bier has reteamed with her screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen for a romantic comedy with cancer overtones. If you think the sprinkling of yellow dust over a building is charming, followed by shots of a coastline set to the tune of ‘That’s Amore’, then you don’t go to the cinema much.
LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED teams Trine Dyrholm with Pierce Brosnan. She is Ida, a middle-aged woman successfully treated for cancer with two grown up children whose son is going off to fight in Afghanistan and daughter is about to be married in Italy. (The same thing really; after all, marriage is a warzone. And Italy – they voted for the Five Star Movement.) Brosnan plays Philip, a widower in the import-export business whose only son is about to be married in Italy. Yes, you guessed it: Ida’s daughter is about to marry Philip’s son. But what’s love got to do with it? Ida is happy married, right? Not so, her husband is fornicating with a lady from accounts. Yes, accounts! ‘It’s been hard for me too,’ he explains, justifying his infidelity with the experience of living with a woman being treated for cancer. (This exchange is one of the laughs, by the way.) Ida has a job in a hairdresser’s. Ironic, I suppose, given that she wears a wig (out of necessity).
The two young people repair to an abandoned villa owned by Philip where they intend to hold their nuptial reception. As they move furniture, the groom-to-be fools with a young Italian man. I think that counts as foreplay. This is a FAIRLY BIG HINT of a plot twist to come. (If you can’t guess it, well, you really don’t go to the cinema much.)
Ida and Philip have a predictably calamitous first meeting. She is parking and reverses her car into his luxury Mercedes Benz. Scratches the paintwork! He is very upset and curses her in English. She gets back into her car and drives it into the wall. ‘Can’t we just exchange insurance details?’ he asks as he notices her wig falling over her face. He apologises.
Now, I should add that this film is prefaced by scenes in which women throw themselves at Philip. After all, he is Thomas Crown, Remington Steele and a centaur in the PERCY JACKSON movie (sequel out this summer). First his sister-in-law and then his secretary offer him the gift of company, well, sky-diving lessons. I knew someone who had sky-diving lessons – well, they dropped out of them. Philip is not interested in the parachute payment of sex. He is in a permanent state of grief. His wife died in a terrible accident and he is incredibly grumpy, which you can read as being clinically depressed or set up for romance. Philip wants nothing to do with Ida. (He has no Ida.) He wants to work. Fresh vegetables need importing and exporting. The fate of the market is in his laptop. In that car park encounter, Ida realises that Philip is the father of the groom. Philip acknowledges her too. But she is a woman who cannot work a fizzy drink dispenser in the executive lounge. And then her luggage gets lost. Philip drives her to the villa, harumphing. ‘Why do people work for you when you’re so hateful?’ Ida asks. ‘Because I pay them well,’ he replies.
The reason Ida travelled alone is because her husband has brought the lady from accounts to the wedding. Ida, who only has the dress she is wearing, is not impressed. Neither is the daughter. Still, Philip’s credit card can fix some of the villa’s shortcomings – and Ida’s wardrobe deficit.
Philip’s sister in law is at the house, all teeth. She has brought her sulky daughter who is either bulimic or has rejected food for a higher purpose. She doesn’t want to be there and is a mood killer. Predictably, there is a scene in which she drinks too much and throws up. There is also a scene where Ida swims in the nude without her wig. Philip is taken with her. However, we are never sure why. Yes, she stands up to her husband and makes no attempt to befriend the lady from accounts. But she scratched his car and lost her luggage. You either buy this moment of emotional connection or you don’t. Reader, I was unmoved.
In a credit card spree with her daughter, Ida acquires a red dress. She sees Philip in a cafe taking coffee. She orders him another. They talk. There are repeated scenes of them standing in their respective balconies looking at the sunrise. This is supposed to signify that they want the same things, think the same way. Yet, neither sits down with their child and says. ‘Three months. You’re rushing into this. Live together. Looks aren’t everything.’
More young people turn up, including Ida’s son. He slugs Far (father) even though his arm is in a bandage. There is a party before the wedding. Arguments follow when an Italian man dances with the bride to be. He really wants the groom, but you guessed that already. Philip throws his phone away. In the garden as Ida runs off in her red dress, having yet another unsatisfactory conversation with him, the sister takes her place and throws herself at Phillip. ‘Give into your feelings, Philip – you know you want me’. Philip rebuffs her, not even politely. He tells her that she is the worst person he has ever known. Meanwhile, the wedding is off.
So how does the story end? Do they all fly back? Do you imagine Philip looking for Ida and asking for a haircut, which she partially completes before telling him to leave? Does she finally leave her husband and return to Italy in search of Philip? Does she find him amongst his workers? Love isn’t what you need, rather a more imaginative script. It is an unsatisfactory blend of raw emotion with cliché. Yet, a tear came to my eye as the couple were united. Some stories work in spite of themselves. I felt cheap. I felt vulgar, but I gave in. I suppose that is a recommendation.
