A Bigger Splash
A pointless flick through your relative’s dismal holiday photo album
Like a holiday with your relatives when you’d rather be with your friends, this Italian set drama is unwanted and boring. It starts with some initial promise but winds down to a damp squib of a conclusion that leaves you with only pretty stars and prettier locations.
Marianne Lane (Tilda Swinton) is a well-known glam musician on voice rest, living in Pantelleria with her partner Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts), when they find out musical connection and former Lane flame Harry (Ralph Fiennes) is coming to visit with the surprise addition of his daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson).
Luca Guadagnino reunites with Swinton after the 2009 movie I Am Love, and though Swinton is an undeniable muse and fascinating talent; this movie is a meandering, strange look into emptiness. The directing is edgy at times, what with the whip pans or the decision to jolt zoom into objects, but aside from these sparse stylistic choices this movie suffers from a zzz-inducing quality.
Even Yorick Le Saux’s beautiful European cinematography couldn’t stir me from the unyielding tiredness I had with this film. I’m not being that harsh either, it’s just a movie that suffers with lengthy nothingness and by the arrival of the third act where you’d hope for more of a thrilling touch in the suspense of the introduced detective mystery…there’s none whatsoever. I really didn’t get on with this supposedly labelled erotic thriller.
Tilda Swinton, a great and striking cinematic presence, draws a short straw playing a dreary glam rock star who can’t even speak for the majority of the narrative. She still presents herself well and has a magnetic physicality but it’s not the performance you’d expect. Matthias Schoenaerts plays the damaged former rehab tainted soul with enough charisma to get by. Dakota Johnson at least captivates with more sexuality and believability in her turn playing Anastasia Steele, but she’s not wholly likable and she’s distant as a character. Ralph Fiennes is the only saving grace I can find with this movie. He musters up a fantastically humorous dose of energy as the irritatingly talkative and lively Harry.
After a promise of something disrupting and possibly tense, the film fizzles into nothing, when it could have been much more. Apart from Fiennes and a sun-baked backdrop, this film appears like a pointless flick through your relative’s dismal holiday photo album.
4/10
