Love Is All You Need
Pierce Brosnan’s latest role, in Susanne Bier’s Love Is All You Need, is that of an Englishman living in Denmark. He’s a lonely, middle-aged widower and estranged single father to boot. However this turns out, it’s a heck of a departure from playing James Bond.
Meanwhile, Ida (Trine Dyrholm) is most definitely not a Bond girl. She’s a hairdresser, recovering from illness, and has just been left by her husband for a younger woman (talk about adding insult to injury). But the movie’s protagonists put their personal issues behind them to set off for Italy to attend the wedding of Patrick and Astrid, Philip’s son and Ida’s daughter.
It certainly sounds intriguing and the Oscar-winning director of In a Better World seems to have come up trumps yet again. “The cliché-averse will doubtless resist, but the laughter and tears here are never less than fully earned. A lovely film,” is Time Out London‘s verdict. “The slick, unapologetically commercial film … has sweetness, charm and a generosity of spirit that will find many takers,” concludes the Hollywood Reporter. But the Guardian isn’t willing to be carried along for the ride, noting that “it looks weirdly like a romcom pastiche, not cynical, but not properly inhabited; it doesn’t taste of romance or comedy any more than Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup cans taste of soup.”
Q&A: Pierce Brosnan