Love Is All You Need (2012)

Waste of time

Excellent but underrated film

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This sweet comedy shows when everything has happened that should not happen happens. Surgery and chemotherapy for breast cancer, her husband with a much younger work colleague on their sofa. Ida travels without her husband to Italy to their daughter's wedding in Sorrento. At the airport in the parking area she backs in to Philips car. Philip, movie-coincidence, is the father to the boy her daughter will marry. Of course and what else. After the arrival, with Philip on their way to their children she has to listen how he treats his staff ("I pay them") bluntly telling him in the taxi that she dislikes him. What else: the movie follows the well known scheme. In a touching monologue in front of everybody her daughter calls off the wedding. The call-off is the cover-up for the real romance and the real 'happy end': the between-the-lines-romance of her mother and the widowed father. Back home where life goes on ... until Philip comes to the hair salon for a haircut the expert she is, talked of he needs. But it is her he needs. But: too early. First other things has to happen. She has to take care of. One: her unfaithful husband. This husband that appeared at their daughters wedding with his latest love affair. Not only 'Love is all we need', the English title: but more.The movies centerpiece is the scene at the beach. She swims. Without clothes and wig, lying there in the sand: naked and bald. Discovering what she does Charles rushes down to warn her of the dangerous undercurrents in the water. Coming out of the water, she: "Don't look" and he: "I am not looking. Take your clothes on". He does not look. But what he does is he sees! Beyond her nakedness, beyond her baldness. The 'skaldede frisør', she is. Seeing her what and as she is. Beyond. The reason for their happy ending. Not in the hair salon. He tried but came too early for a haircut he does not need. First she must take care with the business with her husband. First then, later and now she comes and asks him to open the answer from the hospital and read it to her. By looking at her and his eyes we 'see' what the letter says without hearing him reading the letter: their second Chance.new years eve 2013, for Clemencia

Susanne Bier (In a Better World, Things We Lost in the Fire, After the Wedding, Brothers) has come up with another touching and very real exploration of human feelings with LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED co-written with Anders Thomas Jensen. In a story that could have become Hallmarky, Bier is able to score with just the right amount of human need, sentiment and reality testing that makes this little film win.In Denmark, a hairdresser – very significant occupation we'll find – named Ida (Trine Dyrholm) has just finished post mastectomy carcinoma treatments yet when she goes home to share the news with her husband Leif (Kim Bodnia) en flagrante with a young chick form work and leaves her loutish husband to his life choices. Also living in Denmark is wealthy Englishman Phillip, a middle aged, estranged man still angry at the world for the loss of his wife, leaving him to raise his Patrick (Sebastian Jessen)? Patrick plans to marry Astrid (Molly Blixt Egelind) who happens to be the daughter of Ida. The fates of these two souls are about to intertwine as they embark for a trip to Italy to attend the wedding of Patrick and Astrid, to be staged in Philip's villa with the aid of his sister-in-law Benedikte (Paprike Steen) who has always had eyes for Philip, a thwarted romantic delusion. All eyes are on the wedding Patrick has meticulously planned but eventually takes a turn when Patrick finally admits his same sex feelings, and his thawing father falls in love with the emotionally fragile but captivating Ida. It's a story about seeking love and having the courage to change your life - even when you think it's too late.So many threads to this story but Susanne Bier has tied them together nicely – not providing a Hollywood ending but leaving us with thoughts about how circumstances can alter the way we have been unsuccessfully viewing life. Grady Harp

Arrow Films presents a Danish feature directed by Susanne Bier that brings together Trine Dyrholm and Pierce Brosnan as Ida, a woman battling with a cheating husband and the aftermath of chemotherapy, and widower Philip, protagonists in a romance that begins as they meet at their children's wedding.The encounter takes place in Sorrento, Italy where Brosnan's character met his first wife who died several years before. The beauty and warmth of the setting naturally inspires a feeling of romance, but it all has a slight Mamma Mia air to it – minus the singing.That aside, Bier instills a tenderness in Ida whose struggle with cancer functions as a sub plot, the focus being on her beauty and delicate, intelligent nature. Dyrholm is astonishing to look at on screen, and the grace that she brings to Ida is moving. Brosnan's Philip begins as a wounded, uptight businessman (recognisable from previous films like Remember Me,) but he gently and gradually weaves a vulnerability that proves his fine technique as an actor.There are some glorious moments for Philip's desperate sister-in-law, Benedikte (Paprika Steen) as she is batted away in her attempts to woo Philip. Ida's husband Leif (Kim Bodnia) brings his new woman Tilde (Christiane Schaumburg-Muller) to the wedding unannounced, with both characters lending a comic naivety to the film. The reaction from Ida's children is a dream, particularly Kenneth (Micky Skeel Hansen) with his biting tongue and later, brilliantly well-placed left hook.The focus of Love Is All You Need is of course on love, in a rom-com that is naturally charming and relatable. It doesn't sicken, and the story is plausible and raw. It explores sexuality, sensuality, and the nature of love in a way that is considerate and inquisitive. Susanne Bier has a clear vision with her directorial story, admitting that she is "very romantic" herself but insisting "you can't be heavy handed in a rom-com" – and this very human clarity works in the film's favour.Emotionally engaging and a relatively easy watch, Love Is All You Need is subtitled, but not noticeably, with fluid scenes in English interjected throughout (our leading man understands Danish but never speaks it). It's gorgeously shot and a very open, appreciative film.

"Love Is All You Need" tells a story of a woman who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She comes home and find her husband frolicking with another woman, just days before she flies to Italy to attend her daughter's wedding. The plot sounds eventful already, and indeed the interpersonal relationships in this film is portrayed beautifully, in an engaging and meaningful manner. Almost every relationship portrayed has some sort of defects, because nothing in this world is perfect. As the film quotes, "You can never give or receive enough love". "Love Is All You Need" is a film to feel with your heart, and empathise with the characters' joy and pain. Maybe it's a film that you have to be in a certain mood to like, and I was certainly in that mood to be touched by it.