Sun-baked seaside setting, sex and Swinton
A Bigger Splash (out of 4) Starring Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Matthias Schoenaerts and Dakota Johnson. Directed by Luca Guadagnino. 124 minutes. Opening May 13 at the Varsity. 14A
The sun-baked sensuality of A Bigger Splash sears eyes and senses with Tilda Swinton sublime as Bowie-inspired rock superstar Marianne Lane, who retreats to a villa on a remote Italian island with her photographer boyfriend Paul ( Far from the Madding Crowd’s Matthias Schoenaerts) to rest wrecked vocal chords. A place for nude sunbathing by the pool, sex (and lots of it), mirrored shades and chilled wine, the pace is languid.
But can rock gods ever have total seclusion?
Their idyll is interrupted by Marianne’s fun-seeker ex, record producer Harry (Ralph Fiennes).
He bounds into their cushioned world like a manic St. Bernard, trailing the twenty-something daughter he only recently discovered he had.
She’s Penelope (Dakota Johnson), a wary blond in skimpy cut-offs who is suspicious of Marianne, interested in Paul and perhaps too close to her new-found daddy.
As for Harry, you’ve seen him before in some tropical place or other, the Brit with the sunburned nose at the corner of the bar in the late afternoon, working on his fourth mai tai while expansively sharing stories and annoying people by insisting they loosen up.
Paul and Harry were once close and their history flows from Marianne. They appear to have made peace with her choices as the four characters stake out their territory after Harry drops enough hints to earn an invitation to stay at the villa.
Fiennes has rarely been better onscreen, inhabiting Harry fully. He knows everybody’s secrets (shades of M. Gustave in The Grand Budapest Hotel) and loves to hint he may share them.
Bragging about his lack of impulse control, he’s relaxed in the knowledge he still has Marianne enthralled.
His clownish lip-synching dance to the Rolling Stones “Emotional Rescue” is a standout scene where Marianne watches with a combination of nostalgia, amusement and fondness and — here’s the best part — since she’s on complete vocal rest, it’s conveyed with gestures and expressive gazes.
Initially amusing, Harry keeps pushing boundaries and events turn darker.
Jealousy stings with increasing frequency.
Hidden feelings and events are exposed; sex takes on a different tone as the four begin to claw at things previously off limits.
Suddenly, the tone switches from relationship drama to thriller.
Screenwriter David Kajganic takes the bones of his story from 1969 French film La Piscine, adding slivers about Italy’s recent waves of refugee arrivals to contemporize the narrative.
Director Luca Guadagnino, who captured Swinton with equal adoration in 2009’s I Am Love, uses both sweeping camerawork and long looks to make the most of the volcanic island’s landscape and the sensu- al pleasures of food, angular faces, lithe bodies, blue sea and intimacy.
While A Bigger Splash is somewhat graceless in making the shift from erotic relationship drama to thriller, that doesn’t diminish the pleasure in the work from the four main players, who are excellent.
That includes Johnson who shows, to the surprise of anyone who saw Fifty Shades of Grey, that she has some skill as an actress if given material outside loopy fan fiction.
Tilda Swinton plays a Bowie-inspired rock superstar who retreats to an Italian villa to rest her wrecked vocal cords