The mad passion of a wealthy Milanese matron (Tilda Swinton) for the much younger chef with whom her son has entered a restaurant partnership. Thus, there’s a food-film ingredient from the shelf of Babette’s Feast, Big Night, Like Water for Chocolate, Mostly Martha, and the like — a sensual awakening, for example, to a glisten­ing plate of prawns, enclosing the heroine in her own personal spotlight — as well as a Chatterley-esque attunement to the world of flowers, berries, bugs. Filmmaker Luca Guadagnino exhibits a painstaking attention to detail — the weather, the light, the living spaces, the furnishings, the silent comings and goings of the servants — and he closely monitors emotional temperatures, gelid to red-hot. His direction is littered with fussy, prinking little touches that jump out at you rather than coalesce into a coherent style. And the running-in-place music of John Adams is an intermittent irritant. With Flavio Parenti, Edoardo Gabbriellini, Alba Rohrwacher, Marisa Berenson, and Gabriele Ferzetti. (2010) — Duncan Shepherd