I love Tilda Swinton. She's powerful and gorgeous and sort of grotesque. She's not afraid to contort or expose her body and soul in unflattering ways. She's an actor from the old days of film - her beauty is a result of her artistry rather than just another pretty face.
My friend suggested this Italian film called "I Am Love" the other night. "Tilda Swinton is in it." All he needed to say for me to agree. But it was god awful. It tried so hard to be good the first third. Which was annoying, but there were many beautiful shots and settings and people to get to know. They were all presented as if the filmmaker thought he were Rossellini. But he isn't and Rossellini's once avante-garde manner of introducing a place is now passé. Tilda was amazing in the first act, however. She palyed the patrician wife perfectly and quietly. So tall and regal. She has such an expressive body in the simplest of ways. (Think of her in Michael Clayton. Her physical life was amazing.)
Then the second third of the film a lot of stuff happened without motive, but again, it was pretty. But not that pretty. Or simply pretty the way some blond women are pretty - kind of boring. The film was so dull that Tilda Swinton getting very naked did nothing for me. If kind of make me feel like she had wasted something in exposing herself so in this dog of a film. It seemed as if the filmmaker stopped trying. And then in the third act, it was if he was trying really hard to be bad. The music got really overt. Opera would seem understated in comparison. Agonizingly solemn and at once tragically hysterical. As we walked out of the theater my friend said he was glad he saw it for one reason only, that he would be able to use it as a barometer for film tastes. If he met anyone that loved it, it would tell him a lot.
I still love Tilda, but I won't blindly go see another film just because she's in it.
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