''Love Is All You Need'' ( da, Den skaldede frisør, Lit.: The Bald Hairdresser) is a 2012 Danish
romantic comedy
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...
film directed by
Susanne Bier
Susanne Bier (; born 15 April 1960) is a Danish filmmaker. She is best known for her feature films ''Brothers'' (2004), '' After the Wedding'' (2006), ''In a Better World'' (2010), and '' Bird Box'' (2018), and the TV miniseries ''The Night Mana ...
and starring
Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brendan Brosnan (; born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor and film producer. He is best known as the fifth actor to play secret agent James Bond in the Bond film series, starring in four films from 1995 to 2002 (''GoldenEye'', ''Tomorrow ...
and
Trine Dyrholm
Trine Dyrholm (; born 15 April 1972) is a Danish actress, singer and songwriter. Dyrholm received national recognition when she placed third in the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix as a 14-year-old singer. Four years later, she again achieved national re ...
.
Plot
Danish hairdresser Ida (
Trine Dyrholm
Trine Dyrholm (; born 15 April 1972) is a Danish actress, singer and songwriter. Dyrholm received national recognition when she placed third in the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix as a 14-year-old singer. Four years later, she again achieved national re ...
), who has recently completed a successful
breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a re ...
treatment after undergoing a
mastectomy
Mastectomy is the medical term for the surgical removal of one or both breasts, partially or completely. A mastectomy is usually carried out to treat breast cancer. In some cases, women believed to be at high risk of breast cancer have the operat ...
, returns home to find her husband Leif having an affair with his accountant, Tilde. In a different part of Copenhagen,
English businessman Philip (
Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brendan Brosnan (; born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor and film producer. He is best known as the fifth actor to play secret agent James Bond in the Bond film series, starring in four films from 1995 to 2002 (''GoldenEye'', ''Tomorrow ...
) is a successful exporter of fruits and vegetables who has become misanthropic after the death of his wife.
Meanwhile, Ida's daughter Astrid and Philip's son Patrick have gone to Italy to prepare Patrick's family's villa for their wedding, which is to take place only three months after they met.
Ida is in denial about her husband leaving her. She intends to travel alone to Italy for the wedding, but at Copenhagen airport she bumps into Philip for the first time (her car collides with Philip's). After he shouts at her for being a reckless driver he realizes she is Astrid's mother and the two travel the rest of the way to the villa together. They do not have a favourable view of one another as Philip finds Ida irritating while Ida thinks that Philip is rude and mean.
At the villa drama ensues when Leif brings his new girlfriend, Tilde, to the wedding and everyone is surprised when she introduces herself as his fiancée. Upset, Ida goes for a swim in the cove near the house. Philip sees her swimming nude and runs to urge her out of the water as the current can be dangerous. On their walk home he shows her the groves of lemon and orange trees on the estate.
Philip begins to feel attracted to Ida's warm and sunny personality and eventually confides the way in which his wife died to her. He also rejects the advances of Benedikte, his sister-in-law. At a celebration before the wedding Philip dances with Ida. He allows Leif to cut in but after he pushes Ida around their son comes to Ida's rescue and punches Leif. Philip then tells Ida she's beautiful and wonderful but they are interrupted by Benedikte.
Back at the party Patrick sees Astrid grinding on Alessandro, a hired hand at the villa. He breaks them apart but Astrid tells him that he is gay. When he goes to apologize to Alessandro the two end up kissing.
The morning of the wedding Patrick disappears. Philip finds him and Patrick confesses that he doesn't want to marry and only did it in part because he thought it was something Philip would want him to do. Before the ceremony Patrick and Astrid inform the guests they will not be getting married. Ida goes to comfort Astrid and Philip comforts Patrick. Philip is able to say goodbye to Ida before she leaves but they do not say anything of consequence.
Sometime later after arriving back in Denmark Ida comes home to a house filled with roses. Leif tells Ida he still loves her and apologizes to her for leaving her for Tilde. Philip meanwhile finds his life cold and unsatisfactory. He goes to visit Ida at the salon where she works and tells her that he is cutting back on his workload and moving to Italy. He asks Ida to come and visit him. Ida tells him that Leif has moved back and that she loves him. Back at home Ida realizes she no longer loves Leif and dumps him.
Ida goes to Italy, ditching her wig and wearing her short hair which is growing back from chemo. She goes to Italy where she finds Philip who has gone back to working in the lemon orchard on his estate. She asks him to sit with her while she opens a letter from the hospital giving her her latest test results. Philip and Ida kiss before they open the letter. After reading the results they smile and then kiss again.
Cast
*
Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brendan Brosnan (; born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor and film producer. He is best known as the fifth actor to play secret agent James Bond in the Bond film series, starring in four films from 1995 to 2002 (''GoldenEye'', ''Tomorrow ...
as Philip
*
Trine Dyrholm
Trine Dyrholm (; born 15 April 1972) is a Danish actress, singer and songwriter. Dyrholm received national recognition when she placed third in the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix as a 14-year-old singer. Four years later, she again achieved national re ...
as Ida
*
Kim Bodnia
Kim Bodnia (born 12 April 1965) is a Danish actor, writer, and director. He became widely known for his role as police detective Martin Rohde in the Scandinavian crime drama series '' The Bridge''. He became internationally known for his lead role ...
as Leif
*
Paprika Steen
Kirstine "Paprika" Steen (born 3 November 1964) is a Danish actress and director best known for her performances in Dogme 95 films ''Festen'', ''The Idiots'', Mifune, and ''Open Hearts''. Steen was the first Danish actress since Karin Nellemose ...
as Benedikte
* as Patrick
* as Astrid
* as Tilde
*
Micky Skeel Hansen as Kenneth
*
Bodil Jørgensen
Bodil Jørgensen (born 3 March 1961) is a Danish film actress. She has appeared in 40 films since 1992. She starred in ''The Idiots'', which was entered into the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. On 18 June 2014, Jørgensen was severely injured while s ...
as Lizzie
*
Line Kruse
Line most often refers to:
* Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity
* Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system
Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to:
Art ...
as Bitten
*
Ciro Petrone as Alessandro
Location
The southern Italian scenes were shot in
Sorrento
Sorrento (, ; nap, Surriento ; la, Surrentum) is a town overlooking the Bay of Naples in Southern Italy. A popular tourist destination, Sorrento is located on the Sorrentine Peninsula at the south-eastern terminus of the Circumvesuviana rail ...
and on the
Amalfi Coast
The Amalfi Coast ( it, Costiera amalfitana) is a stretch of coastline in southern Italy overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Gulf of Salerno. It is located south of the Sorrentine Peninsula and north of the Cilentan Coast.
Celebrated worldwide ...
.
Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack features multiple versions of the song "
That's Amore
"That's Amore" is a 1953 song by composer Harry Warren and lyricist Jack Brooks, and became a major hit and signature song for Dean Martin, who first recorded and released it that year. ''Amore'' () means "love" in Italian.
History
The song ...
".
Reception
''Love Is All You Need'' has a 75% approval rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
and a 60/100 average on
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
.
Awards and accolades
In 2013, ''Love Is All You Need'' was selected as best comedy film at the
26th European Film Awards.
References
External links
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''Love Is All You Need''a
Dog And Wolf*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Love Is All You Need
2012 films
2012 romantic comedy films
European Film Awards winners (films)
Danish LGBT-related films
Films about cancer
Films about weddings
Swedish romantic comedy films
Swedish LGBT-related films
Italian romantic comedy films
Italian LGBT-related films
French LGBT-related films
French romantic comedy films
German LGBT-related films
German romantic comedy films
2010s Danish-language films
2010s English-language films
English-language Danish films
English-language Swedish films
English-language French films
English-language German films
English-language Italian films
2010s Italian-language films
Films directed by Susanne Bier
Films with screenplays by Anders Thomas Jensen
Adultery in films
Films set in Copenhagen
Films set in Italy
Films shot in Denmark
Films shot in Italy
Danish independent films
Sony Pictures Classics films
Swedish independent films
Italian independent films
French independent films
German independent films
Zentropa films
Danish romantic comedy films
LGBT-related romantic comedy films
2012 LGBT-related films
2012 multilingual films
Danish multilingual films
Swedish multilingual films
Italian multilingual films
French multilingual films
German multilingual films
2010s French films
2010s German films
2010s Swedish films