LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED (Susanne Bier). 116 minutes. Some subtitles. Opens Friday (May 24). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NNN
Denmark’s Susanne Bier isn’t the first director you’d think of to helm a romantic comedy. She’s usually got her eye on heftier issues like war trauma (Brothers) or racism and family conflict (Oscar winner In A Better World).
With Love Is All You Need, she tries to lighten up in a story about a young couple (Sebastian Jessen and Molly Blixt Egelind) set to marry in breathtaking Sorrento, Italy.
During the festivities, the groom’s father (Pierce Brosnan), a businessman with anger issues, connects with the bride’s mother (Bier regular Trine Dyrholm), who’s battling breast cancer. She’s also coping with the fact that her philandering husband has shown up with his new girlfriend, and it looks like the about-to-marry couple’s relationship is starting to flounder.
Bier does occasionally find the fun – especially in the character of the father’s insufferable sister-in-law (a savvy performance by Paprika Steen) – and injects a surprising queer element.
As always with a Bier pic, it’s gorgeously shot. But unfortunately, she brings little else to a genre that could really use a shake-up.
