Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

To open our new season we’ve chosen this critically-acclaimed love story, which, set in the late1990s within a super-rich family called the Recchis, depicts the haute bourgeoisie in the throes of passion. In their Milanese villa, a marbled and gilded cage too large and ornate for normal family life, the family gathers to celebrate the birthday of its patriarch, sparking off a narrative that sees the carefully controlled, hyper-refined sphere of the Recchis come under increasing strain. With a marvellous central performance from Tilda Swinton, this superb film touches on many different complexities, bearing a resemblance to King Lear and Visconti's The Leopard and depicting a world on the cusp of change, where the grand old order struggles against rowdy new challengers.