Its All About Love

Cast

Joaquin Phoenix as John

Claire Danes as Elena

Sean Penn as Marciello

Douglas Henshall as Michael

Alun Armstrong as David

Margo Martindale as Betsy

Mark Strong as Arthur

Geoffrey Hutchings as Mr. Morrison

Production

The film was written, directed, and produced by Thomas Vinterberg over a period of five years. It was produced through Nimbus Film.

At a certain point during production Vinterberg called up Ingmar Bergman and asked him to come and help him finish the film, as he felt he could not complete it himself. Vinterberg recalled that:

He roared with laughter and said I had to be out of my mind. There was nothing he was less interested in. And he also said I was an idiot that had not decided fast enough what to do after The Celebration (Festen), which he, by the way, called a masterpiece. It was a very contended conversation.

(From an interview in Berlingske Tidende.)

Reception

The film was not very successful, and critics mostly panned it. Richard Roeper called the film "like Kubrick with a talent-ectomy" and Jack Matthews of the New York Daily News declared that "Surely, Vinterberg was high on some inert gas when he embarked on it". Dennis Lim of the Village Voice, however found something to like in the film:

It's All About Love is, by any measure, a colossal folly – ridiculed at its Sundance '03 premier, supposedly disowned by its stars (rumor has it Claire Danes burst into tears upon seeing the end result) and jettisoned by original distributor Focus. But this $10 million Danish-British-French-U.S.-Japanese-Swedish-Norwegian-German-Dutch co-production is a film maudit for the ages — rapturous and inexplicable in equal measure.