Five hours later and  am still trying to
figure out who is to blame for destroying a picture that had so much
potential. Was it the director, Luca Guadagnino, or/and the
director of photography, Yorick Le Saux,
and/or the editor,  Walter Fasano? In 70 years of
movie going I have never seen a film with so many wasted, pretentious,
mood breaking, incomprehensible, repetitive camera shots/scenes. I do
know James Adams, the composer, is responsible for one the worst, most
disturbing soundtracks I have heard in a film.

I was looking forward to this film due to the
good word of mouth from the Venice Film Festival and some of the
headlines in reviews though I didn't read the reviews. In a synopsis of
the film it sounded like a Hollywood film that Hollywood doesn't make
anymore--an epic romance. It has the excellent actress Tilda Swinton,
Scottish born, playing a Russian born woman, Emma, living in Italy,
marrying into an old, rich Italian family, surrounded in opulence, with
more servants than one can count. The home is an art deco dream with so
many rooms the audience has a hard time keeping track of where one is.

Swinton does an excellent
job going from looking beautiful in one shot to almost ugly in another.
Her face reflects all the emotions of what she is thinking discovering
her daughter Elisabetta, played by Alba Rohrwacher, is a lesbian
and the freedom when Elisabetta tells her. Swinton makes you totally
believe the ridiculous love session between her and a young chef, played
by Edoardo Gabbriellini,
a friend of her son, Flavio Parenti.
The love scene consists of her breasts, his butt, flowers, bees, trees,
flora, fauna, mountains and insects.

With a chef involved in a romance you know
there are plenty of food scenes: food being bought, food being served,
food being eaten, not to forget food being used as a pivotal plot device leading to a ludicrous scene. In
addition to those already mentioned, also giving fine performances,
there is Marisa Berenson as
Tilda's mother-in-law, Gabriele Ferzitti as the family patriarch, Pippo Delbono as his son and Tilda's remote husband, Maria Paiato, head housekeeper and every
ones substitute mother, are the other major players.

I would love to recommend this movie for
Swinton's performance, the home the family
lives in and the old fashioned melodramatic script but the camera work,
the soundtrack, the direction and editing sabotage the movie.