Love Is All You Need (2013)
Average Rating: 6.3/10
Reviews Counted: 65
Fresh: 49 | Rotten: 16
Undeniably slight and fluffy, Love Is All You Need is redeemed by its picturesque setting and warm performances by Pierce Brosnan and Trine Dyrholm.
Average Rating: 6.2/10
Critic Reviews: 18
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 6
Undeniably slight and fluffy, Love Is All You Need is redeemed by its picturesque setting and warm performances by Pierce Brosnan and Trine Dyrholm.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 2,433
My Rating
Movie Info
LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED is directed by Golden Globe (R) and Oscar (R) winning filmmaker Susanne Bier, written by Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen and starring Pierce Brosnan and Trine Dyrholm. Philip (Brosnan), an Englishman living in Denmark, is a lonely, middle-aged widower and estranged single father. Ida (Dyrholm) is a Danish hairdresser, recuperating from a long bout of illness, who's just been left by her husband for a younger woman, Thilde. The fates of these two bruised souls are about to
Cast
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Pierce Brosnan
Philip -
Trine Dyrholm
Ida -
Molly Blixt Egelind
Astrid -
Sebastian Jessen
Patrick -
Paprika Steen
Benedikte -
Kim Bodnia
Leif -
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Love Is All You Need Trailer & Photos
All Critics (65) | Top Critics (18) | Fresh (49) | Rotten (16)
Dyrholm has an unusual magnetism, the kind of face that seems open and unguarded, yet you can't figure out just what it is she's thinking - she and Brosnan share an excitingly adult chemistry.
Even with its flaws and occasional flat-footed choices, this is still a rare movie for grownups.
Rather than give her protagonists vivid interior lives, Bier defines them in relation to the satellite characters who circle them ...
Despite the gorgeous sights and rollicking sounds of sunny Italy, a Scandinavian heaviness hangs over the film, with a screenplay by Ms. Bier's frequent collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen, based on a story they developed.
A lovely little lark with a good head on its shoulders.
It's the rare love story that avoids treacly sentimentality. Even rarer is a believable romantic comedy featuring middle-aged people that avoids jokes about sagging flesh and waning libidos.
It's thanks to a calming Italian setting and amiable chemistry between its leads that the film is able to rise above its conventional setup and sometimes erratic and convoluted plot developments.
The whole of "Love Is All You Need" makes me want to book a plane to Italy's Amalfi Coast for a long vacation.
Susanne Bier is unwilling to abandon her own clear-eyed, skeptical view of mankind and its troubles even when in a lighthearted mood.
Director Bier, and her longtime writing partner Anders Thomas Jensen, wove serious undertones into the fabric of this bittersweet romance.
Older teens, adults can say "I do" to wedding dramedy.
Departing her trademark dramas, noted Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier remixes the rom-com in a sparkling cocktail that celebrates the messiness of life.
Overstuffed Love Is All You Need an unsatisfying, predictable rom-com from Susanne Bier
Trine Dryholm proves she could be 'the best actress ever' and Pierce Brosnan is equally good in this tender romance that has several twists and turns.
There are laughs and a warm romantic feeling to be had, but there's more going on here than simple feel-good story-telling.
Everything is telegraphed, but that doesn't mean receiving the message is a let down, largely due to Bier's expert hand and her wonderful cast....Dyrholm's luminous performance buoys the film.
At times it seems as if Susanne Bier set out to create some kind of absurdist comedy, but lost her nerve somewhere along the way.
...a grandiose romance with deeply-buried secrets and soul-stirring declarations of love.
Audience Reviews for Love Is All You Need
Super Reviewer
Scandinavian cinema, and its TV, has become synonymous with gritty crime dramas in recent years. The romantic comedy isn't the first genre you associate with the region, particularly Denmark, the home of such controversy courting directors as Lars Von Trier, Nicholas Winding Refn and Thomas Vinterberg. Indeed, Susanne Bier, the director of 'Love Is All You Need', is herself known for much heavier fare. The theme of coping with death runs through her work and is again present here, with Brosnan playing a man who becomes angry at the world following his wife's senseless death in a car accident.
That's not to say this is a heavy movie, far from it, but it does contain a level of substance absent from the romantic comedies Hollywood churns out. For a start, our two leads are actually likable and worth rooting for. Dyrholm feels like an everyday middle-aged woman who's been dropped into a rom-com scenario. Brosnan's character is more of a movie archetype but he manages to make the role seem fresh. The Irishman is a very under-rated actor, possibly because he doesn't take himself too seriously, but he possesses a range he rarely receives credit for. In the over-looked 2006 western, 'Seraphim Falls' he delivered a stunning dramatic performance and here he shows just how good his comic timing is.
Apart from a disappointingly predictable ending, 'LIAYN' is a charming rom-com aimed at middle-aged viewers but accessible to all but those too ignorant to read subtitles.
Super Reviewer
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Foreign Titles
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Top Critic
Brosnan and Dyrholm's characters are well fleshed out, and undergo a cliched, yet well acted arc. Then there are the extremely poorly written husband sister-in-law. There's nothing good about these two, and they seem there to move the story and character development of others along, doing so in a rather crude manner that made me cringe. This unevenness totally disappoints, and takes away from the film as a whole.
Brosnan is a most pleasant surprise!