I Am Love

Director: Luca Guadagnino, Set Designer: Francesca Di Mottola, Cinematographer: Yorick Le Saux

This film is layered, stylish, and quietly complex. Luca Guadagnino weaves together design and metaphor, showing a traditional, wealthy family navigating modern shifts in business and social norms in a way that reflects the spaces they inhabit, where the interiors are layered with history and personal stories, much like the family itself.

What stood out most while watching I Am Love wasn’t necessarily the plot or symbolism, but the presence of green and how it moved through the film, sometimes appearing at the edges, always understated, never overwhelming. It appeared in objects, furniture, tiles, lamps, curtains, and most beautifully, in the way light slipped across floors and walls. These weren’t just “greens,” but layers of tone, from minty aquas in the kitchen, mossy greens in the garden, sage velvets, olive shadows, the occasional bright flash of a lacquered cabinet. Whether intentional or happy accident, what mattered to me was how they shaped the atmosphere, accompanying the characters and holding the theme and spaces together like a subtle, recurring note.

I Am Love. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, First Sun/Mikado Film/Rai Cinema, 2009.

Watching these scenes made me think about how we use color in real interiors. In film, you can compose a perfect frame, manipulate every detail, and freeze a mood, but in real life, a home is in constant flux. It shifts with natural light, with use, with time of day. You might notice how green in a kitchen softens at midday, then deepens by lamplight at night. If you’re trying to compose a space and want to reference a film, it’s not about copying the look of a movie set; it’s about listening to what a space wants to be. That means understanding context, the habits and desires of the people living there, and seeing the home as a whole composition, not a series of separate rooms. It’s why off-white or pale neutrals can work so beautifully as a base: they give you room to layer color through accents, for example, a lacquered cabinet, a velvet chair, or a patterned curtain without ever tipping into chaos. Like green in this film, color acts as a soft, dynamic thread, moving through materials, finishes, and light, creating a dialogue for your home.

I Am Love. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, First Sun/Mikado Film/Rai Cinema, 2009.

In the film, the green could symbolize desire or longing, especially for Emma (Tilda Swinton) and Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini). When they’re together, green is always present, but in different contexts: utilitarian and almost institutional inside the villa, lush and alive outdoors, sometimes merely a glimpse in a reflection or caught at the edge of a window, marking the difference between freedom and constraint. It’s like the green can’t be fully kept out, no matter how much the interior tries to seal itself off with pattern, mosaic, trim, or formality, nothing will stop these two from finding each other. And that’s what’s so poetic about this film, Luca Guadagnino uses color to be seen and sensed, deliberately layered into the spaces of the film, shaping the mood and tension of the characters, and offering a way to think about how we might shape and experience our own homes.

I Am Love. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, First Sun/Mikado Film/Rai Cinema, 2009.

Shop-The-Look
The film takes place in Milan, Italy at the Villa Necchi, designed in the 1930s by architect Piero Portaluppi. The villa is an example of Italian rationalism, with clean lines, industrial materials, and functional planning. Yet the interiors are rich with Art Deco ornate details, patterned surfaces, and an opulent mix of marble and fine woods.

To recreate the feeling today, you wouldn’t shop at a single “Italian” source. What makes the spaces feel alive is the layered, inherited quality with a mix of eras and influences collected over time. A French or English chinoiserie cabinet could sit comfortably against Italian modern upholstery for example, Cassina, B&B Italia, or pieces with a similar spirit. Add vintage or reproduction brass lighting, maybe French or Austrian, and art or objects with a broad European sensibility rather than a strict Italian pedigree.

Below are my picks of furniture that channel the spirit of I Am Love. These are not direct reproductions of Villa Necchi or from the film, but an attempt to capture the mood: layered, eclectic, and elegant without being overly formal.