By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com
Review: A Bigger Splash
There’s a glow that enshrines the Mediterranean isle of Pantelleria. The idyllic fashion in which it’s presented in A Bigger Splash, the skeptical would conclude it was a fictional locale. It’s not. Pantelleria is a getaway for wealthy Europeans.
So it’s the perfect perch for rock superstar Marianne Lane (Tilda Swinton) and filmmaker boyfriend Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts). Their serenity and seclusion will soon be undone by the arrival of bombastic record producer Harry Hawkes (Ralph Fiennes) and young daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson). Harry has a professional and personal past with Marianne that’s will make life complicated for this quartet of castaways.
A Bigger Splash (no relation to the David Hockney painting or documentary) is a rethinking of the 1969 French film La Piscine, which starred Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Maurice Ronet and a young Jane Birkin. It was set in the more accessible environs of St. Tropez. Where the earlier film was structured as a traditional thriller with an unsettling moral twist, filmmaker Luca Guadagnino thumbs his nose at genre conventions. He is a supreme stylist as evidenced by his international breakout with I Am Love. His command of cinematic language and picture-perfect compositions mesmerizes. Guadagnino like his Italian brethren Visconti and Antonioni is a master of setting a tone and creating a mood that envelops a story like an exquisitely tailored dress.
Harry is both clown and demon, recalling the more literally devilish Jack Nicholson of The Witches of Eastwick. His intent is to disrupt Marianne and Paul’s paradise, although the script comes up short at a convincing rationale for his actions. One can postulate that he is evil incarnate and therefore needs no other purpose but that’s largely undone by events that transpire late one night in the swimming pool.
Swinton, certainly one of contemporary cinema’s most fearless actors, transforms into a rock goddess on stage and off and raises the bar as her character only speaks in a whisper owing to strained vocal chords. Johnson seamlessly elevates the most obvious character with a disquieting mystery. But it’s Fiennes’ braggadocio that provides cohesion with an unfettered performance that careens from stark irritation to surprising charm. It’s ideally suited for the nature of the piece but few of his peers would have the courage to perch at the end of the limb and ignore the fates.