Fox Searchlight
Some movies just scream foreign, and those often feel odd to American sensibilities. This can be good or bad depending on what you like, sometimes a foreign feel is just what you needed to be refreshing. Other times it’s a rehash that is unnecessary and doesn’t seem to be anything unique. I like dramas just fine, but the “erotic thriller” never really worked super well for me. Sometimes when it’s weird, like Black Swan, or genre breaking like Eyes Wide Shut. Those are the exceptions.
A Bigger Splash (which is a terrible title in retrospect) is an Italian-American film inspired by the 1969 Italian-French film La Piscine. In this version, the location is beautiful Italian island Pantelleria, and the players are four. Tilda Swinton plays Marianne Lane, a rock star recovering from her surgeries to fix her vocal chords. The lack of her speech plays very unsubtle and seems overall to be pointless. Matthias Schoenaerts plays her boyfriend Paul, who is handsome and that’s it. His character is to be exasperated, tempted, or loyal.
They are the vacationing ones, a couple in love. Until it’s all shaken up by the arrival of the other two players, Marianne’s old flame Harry (Ralph Fiennes) and his young adult daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson). Harry is odd, intense, and jealous. He’s a bit creepy and seems to be unnaturally touchy-feely with his daughter, whom he only recently met. But he’s charming and loves to swim naked. He gets nude more than anyone else, and then Tilda Swinton, and then Dakota Johnson. If that matters to you.
Finally Penelope is the beguiling, sarcastic, mysterious girl with a secret. She’s fine as a character, but her character is so obvious, it’s boring. But the real trouble is the pacing.
It takes forty minutes for anything to happen, with a lot of silent meaningful gazing and pointless conversation that’s meant to be engrossing and artistic but made it hard for me to pay attention. The whole point is to set up a situation where Harry tempts Marianne and Penelope tempts Paul, but it’s so obvious that it’s not particularly interesting. I think a tighter pace would’ve improved things, but there were a lot of shots of people driving down dirt roads. A lot of them.
And you can’t give a single one of those up, I suppose.
The story is clichéd but is based closely on that 1960s movie, so I can’t be that judgmental in that regard. That said, it didn’t really update much. The rock star aspect went nowhere, and some of the later twists and turns were just “shocker!” without substance. A lot of bits and pieces that didn’t gel well together.
That said, the acting is pretty great. Tilda Swinton is great with her whispers and silent communication. Ralph Fiennes is a force of charming personality, and even the two “pretty” people, Penelope and Paul, have some interesting back and forth. I’ve seen better work from Dakota Johnson, but I don’t think much of the other guy. He’s fine, but he always seems to play the same sorts of roles.
I know this sort of arty film will work for some, but for me, it was hard to get engaged. It wasn’t exciting or shocking, just a decent way to pass the time. It’s paced classically, but it’s shot modernly. So it just doesn’t combine well to me, but I’m sure that those that like the classic feel will still probably like it. It’s an erotic thriller that takes its time. So … that’s all you need to know.
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