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Review: Love Is All You Need

At first glance, Love Is All You Need bears a close resemblance to musical mum-magnet, Mamma Mia. It’s set on a stunning Mediterranean island, it centres on a soon-to-be-wed couple and their parents, and it stars Pierce Brosnan. By some token of divine benevolence, he does not sing. There is a bit of dancing though. Swings and roundabouts, I guess.

The film follows Ida, a hairdresser who’s been having a tough time of it lately. Not only has she just finished a course of cancer treatment, but she’s also discovered that her husband is cheating on her. Still, things are looking up, as her daughter’s about to get married in Italy. On her way to the wedding she bumps into Philip, the groom’s father. Although a wealthy businessman, Philip’s personal life is far from perfect. He has avoided close relationships since the death of his wife; even becoming distant from his son, Patrick. His impatience clashes with the warm optimism of Ida. But while their children’s relationship falls apart during wedding preparations, Philip and Ida grow closer.

Pierce Brosnan’s job as a fruit and vegetable magnate lends itself to some highly entertaining lines: “Radishes are our top priority. Forget anything else!” This penchant for plants even extends to the couple’s bizarre fruit-based flirtation. “I couldn’t imagine a world without lemons,” Ida sighs passionately. “No, nor could I,” Brosnan smoulders, before delivering the worst chat-up line in history: “Did you know, botanically speaking, the lemon is a berry?” Phwoar – is it just me or is it getting a little hot in here? I can’t wait ‘til he tells her he used to work for MI6.

The trailer for Love Is All You Need downplays the fact that the majority of the film is in Danish; cannily luring in the unsuspecting, subtitle-averse English audience. It is amusing to watch Pierce heroically pretend to understand his colleagues, while never failing to reply to them in English. You’d think he’d have picked up a couple of words, seeing as he runs a successful company in Denmark and all.

The trajectory of the romance between Ida and Philip is clearly supposed to begin with mutual hatred. They make a half-hearted attempt at bickering in the taxi to the villa, but I never got the sense that they were anything more than ambivalent towards one another. The scenes between them felt stilted; made worse by an unnatural English dialogue riddled with clichés. On the other hand, the deteriorating relationship of the young fiancés was engaging and sensitively handled. Though maybe that’s just because my Danish is a bit rusty.

As a pleasant romcom with some well-executed subplots, Love Is All You Need is far from being a bad film. Trine Dryholm is endearing as Ida, and her cancer is handled with a tact which never veers towards sentimentality or melodrama. Unfortunately, the absence of originality and strong comic lines lets this film down.

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