Love Is All You Need

In this country, romantic comedies are usually very formulaic. We've all seen them--too many titles to list, suffice it to say that a lot of times it is tough to get through them because of their predictability. All that it took to see a fairly solid romantic comedy, was going to an art house and see an independent, Denmark film entitled "Love Is All You Need".

A Danish woman, Ida (Trine Dyrholm), who has just finished her cancer treatments, walk in on her husband, Leif (Kim Bodnia) in bed with his young co-worker, Thilde (Christiane Schaumburg-Muller). After she unravels at what she's witnessed, she ends up traveling alone to their daughter, Astrid's (Molly Blixt Egelind) wedding to fiance, Patrick (Sebastian Jessen), which is to take place in Italy, only to meet the father of the groom, Philip (Pierce Brosnan), and immediately makes a bad first impression.
At the seaside villa where Philip once lived with his wife, conflicts arise not least between the soon-to-be newlyweds. But first impressions fade, and Ida may find her chance for another, hopefully much improved life.

Others to round out the cast are Ciro Petrone as Alessandro, Marco D'Amore as Marco, Paprika Steen as Benedikte, Philip's sister-in-law and a work associate, Bodil Jorgensen as Vibe, and Line Kruse as Bitten. Both Brosnan and Dyrholm give stunning yet real performances.

This was passionately directed by Susanne Bier ("Brev til Jonas" '92, "Pensionat Oskar" '95, "Sekten" '97, "Once in a Lifetime" 2000, "Open Hearts" '02, "Brothers" '04, "After the Wedding" '06, "Things We Lost in the Fire" '07, "In a Better World" '10). A lot of emotion here was needed, especially considering the amount of dysfunction that these characters were intertwined with, and Bier used just the normal amount of these emotions to get the point across that she was attempting to convey while keeping the pace lighter at strategic places of script. This was written by Anders Thomas Jensen based on a story by Bier and Jensen. Other than being a little long-in-the-tooth--could have been about 10 minutes shorter, and a couple of choppy places script wise, this was a heartfelt, light with a dramatic overtone, emotional film with more to offer than the usual rom-com. Even the whimsical score by Johan Soderqvist is incredibly fitting for this film.

If you're into interesting characters and premise, and you don't mind subtitles (with some English thrown in), this is the film for you. If nothing else, the beautiful Italian locales will keep you peeled as you're getting used to these characters.

Out of 4 Stars: 3                       Rated: R                         116mins.