A Bigger Splash (MA 15+)
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Review by: Jessica Craig-Piper
Loosely based on Jacques Deray’s 1969 psychological thriller La Piscine (The Swimming Pool), A Bigger Splash is the first English language outing from Italian director Luca Guadagnino (I Am Love). Reuniting with his frequent and long-time collaborator Tilda Swinton, Guadagnino creates a tense little chamber piece in which an impeccably cast quartet of glamorous, wealthy characters relentlessly push each other’s buttons, with appropriately scandalous results.
Swinton plays Marianne Lane, an international rockstar recuperating from throat surgery on the sun-seared island of Pantelleria off the Sicilian coast. Her taciturn younger paramour Paul (Matthias Schoenarts) is also in recovery, from alcoholism and a failed suicide attempt. Rendered largely mute by her condition, Marianne’s dual personas are beautifully contrasted in a dialogue-free opening sequence that juxtaposes flashbacks of her iconic glam rock alter ego – clad in a sequined jumpsuit and playing to an enormous stadium, clearly referencing Swinton’s late friend David Bowie – with quiet, languorous scenes of the wordless lovers blissfully ensconced in their holiday retreat.
The calm, idyllic bubble is burst spectacularly by the abrupt and unexpected arrival of Marianne’s former flame, hedonistic music producer Harry Hawke, played with show-stopping gusto by Ralph Fiennes in one of his most captivating performances to date. A centrepiece scene in which he dances his way Jagger-esque across a villa rooftop, lip-synching to The Rolling Stones’ Emotional Rescue, is worth the admission price alone. Incurably narcissistic, irritatingly verbose and overflowing with the self-involved nostalgia of grandiose industry war stories, exhibitionist Harry is nonetheless impossible to refuse. It is perhaps this inescapable charisma, matched by a creative intelligence and a fierce rejection of convention, that keeps an old electricity sparking between he and Marianne- a fizzing, dangerous undercurrent that threatens to erupt.
Along for the ride, and completing the sexually charged foursome as she makes eyes at Paul, is Harry’s recently discovered daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson). Worldly, seductive, and uncomfortably Lolita-like, Penny appears to perversely enjoy the discomfort of others and the trail of destruction left in the wake of her bacchanalian father. The provocative young nymphette character is perhaps overfamiliar, and verges on cliché, but Guadagnino edges it into darker territory; “He doesn’t believe in limits…” Marianne whispers hoarsely to Paul as the two conjecture about Harry’s overly amorous relationship with his daughter.
Part psychodrama and part erotic thriller, with a dash of black comedy care of Fiennes, this tonally obscure film is not for everyone. Drawn out perhaps a little too long in the final act, the fun melodrama is also strangely undercut by the intersecting storyline of North African refugees arriving on the Mediterranean island daily. Potentially intended to provide a reflexive critique of the navel-gazing antics of these rich, privileged protagonists, the attempted political context sits awkwardly with the whole.
Other conceits work brilliantly. Marianne’s enforced silence – a story choice suggested by Swinton – is the perfect yet frustrating foil to Harry’s incessant attention-seeking prattle. As the group inflame and unravel one another, Swinton inhabits the difficult role with a commanding depth, her face the canvas for a host of complex warring emotions. The plot is simple, but this is unimportant; it is the larger-than-life characters, their rich, tangled histories and the legacy of their perilous, lurking desires that lingers long after the credits.
A Bigger Splash is in Australian cinemas now.
