(Italy/France, 124 min.)
Dir. Luca Guadagnino, Writ. David Kajganich
Starring: Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Matthias
Schoenaerts, Dakota Johnson
 |
| Matthias Schoenaerts and Tilda Swinton star in A Bigger Splash. Courtesy of Elevation Pictures. |
Tilda Swinton and Luca Guadagnino make waves once again. The
actor/director team of 2010’s scrumptious I am Love returns with the sizzling drama A
Bigger Splash. The film once again brings audiences to the sweltering
sexiness of Italy as Swinton stars as rocker Marianne Lane, who recuperates on
scenic Pantelleria Island following vocal cord surgery. Swinton is a near-silent
marvel here and she’s matched by a strong trio of actors as Ralph Fiennes,
Matthias Schoenaerts, and Dakota Johnson all craft deliciously complex
characters within this dark and atmospheric slice of Italian sexytime. Fun,
bubbly, and artfully debauched, A Bigger
Splash is one of the year’s better leaps for alternative indie fare.
Guadagnino unfolds the getaway as vacations with friends often develop in real life. There’s a period of bliss and relaxation that’s interrupted by fits of restlessness. Guests then overstay their welcome and the holiday turns sour. Admittedly, the turn here is much darker than most European getaways (hopefully) are.
The first act is long lay-in of sun-soaking and pleasure
seeking. Marianne, at her late mother’s villa with her partner Paul
(Schoenaerts), welcomes a guest: it’s her producer, friend, and former flame
Harry (Fiennes). All’s well, expect—surprise!—for the 22-year-old daughter
named Penelope (Johnson) he brings along with his gear. A younger traveller
usually isn’t a problem, but Harry and Penny have an ickily incestuous
relationship. He ogles her too much and he hugs her too intimately, but his
affection for his daughter, of whose existence he learned only recently, adds
to the discomfort that Marianne hides behind her aviator shades.
Cue Penny, especially saucy, and her allure of youth and naïveté.
Making eyes at Paul and drawing leering peeps from her daddy, Penny draws every
ray of the sun to her body. Johnson again assumes a sexually charged role after
Fifty Shades of Grey, but she’s
infinitely better here as Penny flaunts her body in skimpy, revealing clothes
and uses every tool at her disposal to accessorise her sex appeal. Everything
is a tease and a come-on in her act, and Johnson’s flirtatious charade nearly
steals A Bigger Splash from her more
seasoned co-stars.
Fiennes is also very good in his over-the-top performance as
Harry. This performance is one that could easily blow the film, since Harry is
a loud, incessantly annoying whore for attention. He just doesn’t shut up the
whole movie, but Fiennes’ zaniness has the right blend of smugness, arrogance,
and ignorance to balance his character. Everyone knows some guy like Harry who
needs to be the centre of attention with his stories, his energy, and his taste
in music, not to mention his slimy sense of entitlement over women, be it his
daughter or his ex-lover, who rebuffs him more than once during the getaway.
Laying poolside is Paul, whom Schoenaerts plays with brooding
charm. Like Johnson, he’s an actor finding a fit for highly sexualised
performances (re: Rust and Bone) or
for playing the object of desire (re: Far from the Madding Crowd). His part isn’t nearly as showy as those of the
other three are, but he’s a necessary anchor amongst the escalating crazy of
the quartet, which proves especially effective in the film’s dark final act.
Unsurprisingly, though, A
Bigger Splash is tidal wave for Tilda. Swinton once said that silent acting
was the peak of cinema (talking, I believe, about The Artist) and she displays the full range of character that a
great performer can convey with the subtlety of her face. Miming gestures,
rolling her eyes, or speaking raspy whips as Marianne strains to control her
complicated relationship to Harry, A
Bigger Splash is one of few films to use Swinton’s uniquely enigmatic
screen presence to its full effect. When Marianne screams in A Bigger Splash, it’s devastating, but
when she restrains herself and wails in self-possessed silence, it’s even
better.
A Bigger Splash
sweats with palpable sexual heat as the quartet lazes, dines, tans, and bickers
in the golden Italian sun. Guadagnino teases out the humid atmosphere of the
island as slow zooms show the vacationers in various fits of leisure. As he
does in I am Love, Guadagnino harnesses
the pleasures of the senses to immerse the viewer within intoxicating world of
this drama.
Food plays an especially significant role in A Bigger Splash and while nothing
compares to the oh-so-sexy scene of Tilda Swinton eating a prawn in I am Love, A Bigger Splash lets one
taste the pleasures of Italy by accentuating the tactility of fine Italian fare
and the juiciness of its buxom fruits that drip through the frame. The
all-seeing camera, which offers ravishing lensing by I am Love alum Yorick Le Saux, captures the simmering sexual
tension that ripples like the pool at Marianne’s villa. Every come-hither glance
and carry hints of anger, regret, desire, and longing, while every sightline
hidden behind sunglasses says even more. The simmering tension mounts until it
explodes in the film’s unexpected and violent finale, which the strength of the
cast, particularly Swinton, aids through the tonal shift from sunny days to
tempestuous tragedy. The film is in many ways the movie that Angelina Jolie
Pitt’s By the Sea aspires to be but
falls short of becoming with its arty getaway of relaxation, restlessness, and
relationships gone awry. It intoxicates with its romantic getaway only to crash
the idyllic ease upon the island’s rocky shoals.
A Bigger Splash is now playing in Toronto at the Varsity.
It opens in Ottawa at
The ByTowne on June 3.
