WHILE “TOY STORY 3” continued to reign at the box office, “Grown Ups” (starring Adam Sandler and his band of comedic brothers, many from “SNL”) finished second and “Knight and Day” (starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz) fizzled in third place last week, there’s a quiet, yet riveting Italian film that is building momentum during a summer movie season that has made one of the loudest thumps Hollywood has heard in years. That film is “I Am Love” starring Tilda Swinton, the Oscar-winning actress from “Michael Clayton.” Directed by Luca Guadagnino, the film tracks Swinton’s character Emma Recchi, a Russian who married into a wealthy Italian family and lives in the kind of home that magazines celebrate as the essence of fine living.

The film opens with Emma and her staff headed by Ida (Maria Paito) meticulously setting up an exquisite Christmastime birthday celebration for the family’s patriarch, Edoardo Recchi (Gabriel Ferzetti). At the party, he announces that he’s giving the family business to both his son Tancredi (Pippo Delbono) and his grandson, Edoardo (Flavio Parenti). But there are even more startling developments for the Recchi family. Their daughter, Elisabetta (Alba Rohrwacher), whose boyfriend wants to get more serious with her, reveals that she has fallen in love with a woman. This impacts her mother tremendously, awakening her own passion for life and love. The younger Edoardo gets behind the plans of a family acquaintance, Antonio (Edoardo Gabriellini), a chef, who wants to open a restaurant in the countryside. While sampling Antonio’s culinary creations, sparks fly between Emma and Antonio, and when Emma goes to visit Elisabetta, she bumps into Antonio and their affair begins.

This is the third creative collaboration between director and star, and all of Swinton’s talents were clearly considered for this venture. Swinton’s rare beauty is ravishing from the start, but as the story takes a tragic turn, her beauty seems to disintegrate in pain; and yet it also shows that she is alive. Swinton is one of those actresses who reveals much of what’s inside through her eyes and the excellent camera work by Yorick le Saux patiently captures it and the visually stunning physical passion between the secret lovers, even though it might register a little tedious and self-indulgent at times. Director Guadagnino’s nods to other cinematic styles - LuchinoVisconti and Alfred Hitchcock - are superb as is the fine cast he assembled and the lavish production design that creates a museum-like feel to this Italian aristocratic family’s mansion.

“I Am Love” is MPAA-rated R for sexuality and nudity, and is in very limited release.