Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Emma has left Russia to live with her husband in Italy. Now a member of a powerful industrial family, she is the respected mother of three, but feels unfulfilled. One day, Antonio, a talented chef and her son's friend, makes her senses kindle.
Tilda Swinton delivers a career-defining performance as Emma, conveying suppressed desire and awakening with extraordinary physicality and emotional precision. Luca Guadagnino's direction produces ravishing cinematography — Milan's grand interiors, Sanremo's lush gardens, and sensuous food close-ups are composed with near-operatic intensity, aided by John Adams' propulsive score. The plot, however, is a relatively familiar bourgeois-adultery arc that doesn't transcend its melodramatic conventions, and the ending, while dramatically bold, tips into melodrama that feels slightly overwrought. Novelty sits in the middle — the film has a distinctive sensory register but its thematic territory is well-trodden.