Pierce Brosnan plays a middle-aged businessman who finds love on a picturesque, sun-dappled Mediterranean island where he’s arrived for a wedding in “Love Is All You Need.” But rest assured, he does not bellow songs again in a film that’s quite a bit less silly than “Mamma Mia!”
Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, who won a foreign-language feature Oscar for the very dramatic “In a Better World,” doesn’t stint on the scenery, schmaltz or laughs in this classy romantic comedy. She mixes in just enough poignancy and honest emotion to make it a perfect date movie, at least for older couples.
Heading for the same wedding on the Amalfi Coast is Ida (Trine Dyrholm, star of “In a Better World”). She’s a Danish breast-cancer survivor dumped by her boorish husband (Kim Bodnia) for his sluttish secretary (Christiane Schaumburg-Müller) who our heroine discovers having sex with him when she comes home early from a doctor’s appointment.
Ida and Brosnan’s character — a grouchy British widower named Philip who operates a produce empire out of Stockholm — meet cute at the airport when he berates her for backing into his car.
The two quickly discover they are respectively the mother of the bride (Molly Blixt-Egelind) and the father of the groom (Sebastian Jessen), who had somehow never met before.
Arriving for the festivities at a vast Italian estate owned by Philip, Ida receives an icy reception from the sister of Philip’s late wife (a very funny Paprika Steen) who has helped raise his daughter.
The snobby sister-in-law isn’t happy when the oblivious Philip — who she has secretly lusted after — begins warming up to Ida after he discovers her skinny dipping without the wig disguising her bald head.
The comic complications begin to pile up with the arrival of Ida’s estranged husband, who has further humiliated her by bringing along his crass new girlfriend.
Meanwhile, the bridegroom’s penchant for sunbathing with a hunky vineyard worker and the bride’s sexual frustration makes you wonder if this wedding will come off at all.
Erstwhile James Bond Brosnan hasn’t been so relaxed on-screen in years, and Dyrholm provides depth to a character who makes all sorts of excuses for her hubby, much to the concern of her touchingly protective soldier son (Micky Skeel Hansen).
“Love Is All You Need” is entirely predictable, and that’s OK in a film as lovingly made, well acted and enjoyable as this. But somebody should have told the director that using Dean Martin singing “That’s Amore” on the soundtrack (as she does several times here) passed its expiration date around the time of “Moonstruck” a quarter-century ago.
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