“I like to do peculiar,” says A Bigger Splash director Luca Guadagnino. “It’s great to do peculiar.”
The Italian filmmaker is talking about his relationship with Tilda Swinton, star of four of his feature films. In their latest collaboration she plays a rock star recuperating from throat surgery with her boyfriend Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts) on a remote island halfway between Sicily and Tunisia. Their tranquil time, however, is shattered by the arrival of Harry (Ralph Fiennes) her former record producer and lover and his Lolita-esque daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson). Soon into the visit the sunny Mediterranean days take a dark turn as their shared histories bring up some ghosts from the past.
In the new film Guadagnino throws a peculiar twist Swinton’s way by making her character largely mute, forcing her to rely solely on her face and eyes to complete the character.
“We are very dear friends,” he says of Swinton. “We love one another completely. The pleasure of one another’s company is so strong, so unstoppable. Also Tilda is such a courageous performer. That combination makes everyday an adventure, new and funny and tough and great. Also, I think what we do together is very peculiar.”
Swinton is spectacular but A Bigger Splash is worth the price of admission just to see Ralph Fiennes, Lord Voldemort himself, strut his stuff to disco era Rolling Stones.
“I am a big fan of Ralph Fiennes,” says Guadagnino. “I have been loving him since I saw him in Schindler’s List. I saw him in the trailer for the Grand Budapest Hotel and I found this kind of levity that made me think he’d be
perfect for Harry.”
In one long scene Fiennes unleashes some of the wildest dance moves since Elaine Benes in what must be his loosest on-screen performance ever.
“Everything started with the brilliant script by David Kajganich and the description of how this man loses himself to the dance,” says the director.
“Starting from there Ralph proposed to me to work with a choreographer from London. We met her and decided it was good for her to let Ralph find something wild within him. Let him be loose with his own body and have confidence with his own movements. I described the world the choreographer and Ralph went into as psychoanalytical choreography. It was about unleashing and having the confidence to unleash. It wasn’t choreography that was staged gesture by gesture. It was about creating that flow.”
A Bigger Splash is a romp — a lusty and lurid thriller with worldly people, drugs, drinking and some startling nudity.
The film’s nakedness, Guadagnino says, “is about being truthful to the story you are telling and the characters you are depicting. We are talking about four people on an island entangled in the web of desire. People who come from rock and roll, people who come from a sort of elite world, people who are completely liberated in their own skin even though they are completely chained by their passion. They are people who get naked. For me it is not a contrivance. It is the answer to the question, What would they wear in a place like that, doing things the way they do?”
Next time around, however, don’t expect as much skin. “I can’t wait to make a Victorian movie with people dressed all the way up to their necks,” he laughs.
Richard and “Canada AM” host Beverly Thomson kick around the weekend’s big releases, the George Clooney – Julia Roberts thriller “Money Monster,” the lusty and lurid “A Bigger Splash” and the Scottish drama “Sunset Song.”
In 1969 the Alain Delon potboiler “La Piscine” (“The Swimming Pool”) had a look at beautiful people and sexual jealousy set against the backdrop of the Côte d’Azur. Forty-five years later director Luca Guadagnino makes the story his own, transplanting the characters to a remote island halfway between Sicily and Tunisia, replacing jealousy with desire and setting the whole thing to the slinky beat of The Rolling Stones’ “Emotional Rescue.” “A Bigger Splash” keeps the swimming pool but reinvents the rest of the story.
Rock star Marianne Lane (Tilda Swinton) and her boyfriend Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts) are living a quiet life on the coast of Italy. Very quiet. She is recuperating from surgery and can’t speak. Their tranquil time, however, is shattered by the arrival of Harry (Ralph Fiennes), Lane’s former record producer and lover, and his Lolita-esque daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson). He’s an impulsive first-one-in-the-pool, free spirit who invites strangers over to hang out (“You’re not speaking sweetheart so I had to make other plans!” he says.), she’s a flirty presence who says things like, “My trouble is, I fall in love with every pretty thing.” A day or so into the visit the sunny Mediterranean days take a dark turn as their shared history brings up some ghosts from the past.
“A Bigger Splash” is worth the price of admission just to see Ralph Fiennes, Lord Voldemort himself, strutting his stuff to disco era Rolling Stones. He unleashes some of the goofiest dance moves since Elaine Benes in what must be his loosest performance ever.
Come for the dancing, stay for the bawdy and boisterous atmosphere. The idyllic, sun dappled backdrop plays at odds with the noirish story as Guadagnino brushes his canvas with sexual tension, slowly adding layers to the story as he builds up to a startling climax. It’s a romp, with worldly people, loads of nudity, drugs and drinking, until it isn’t and the time comes to pay the price of living a wild life without regrets. As the characters manipulate one another Guadagnino manipulates the audience with flamboyant filmmaking, unexpected jump cuts and zooms, which demand your attention.
A strong cast—this is Fiennes’s showcase but Schoenaerts anchors the foursome with brooding, if bland work while Johnson smoulders and Swinton pulls off a mostly silent performance with artful facial expressions—holds interest when they are behaving like the entitled folks they are and even more when it starts to crumble.
Playing out in the background are examples of Europe’s ongoing migrant crisis that stand in stark contrast to the lives of luxury lead by the leads. Guadagnino doesn’t make direct commentary on the situation—in fact he doesn’t take a stance on any of the behaviour on display—but instead subtly suggests that we—and the characters, specifically a police inspector—are more interested in the story’s sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll than the plight of the Tunisian refugees.
“A Bigger Splash” could have swum in the shallow end of the pool, but subtly and interestingly goes off the deep end.
Watch Richard’s CP24 reviews for “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Far From the Madding Crowd” and “Can’t Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police” with host Marci Ien.
Watch Richard’s “Canada AM” reviews for “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Far From the Madding Crowd” and “Can’t Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police” with host Marci Ien.
“Far From the Madding Crowd” isn’t a Masterpiece Theatre style remounting of the 1874 Thomas Hardy novel. Instead it’s vibrant soap opera, complete with love triangles, pregnancy, suicide, love sick neighbours, crimes of passion, more marriage proposals than you can shake a chaff fork at, missed opportunities, bad decisions, broken hearts and petticoats.
Carey Mulligan is Bathsheba Everdene, the headstrong and beautiful mistress of a sprawling farm inherited from her uncle. She’s independent—“I have no need for a husband,” she says.—but also an irresistible man magnet, beating off marriage proposals like Neo in a roomful of Agent Smiths. Suitors include manly sheep farmer (and aptly named) Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), high-strung middle-aged landowner William Boldwood (Michael Sheen) and a dandy in a Scarlet uniform, Sergeant Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge) who uses swordplay as foreplay.
Through reversals of fortune and chance encounters Bathsheba perseveres, making her way through the world, the very embodiment of resilience and grace.
Director Thomas Vinterberg breathes new life into the story by preserving the classic themes of the novel on marriage, class and gender while not being precious about it. The film’s pacing is as bucolic as the rural English countryside setting, but the movie feels very contemporary in its approach. It’s a rom com, without much com. There’s even the 19th century equivalent of the romantic movie staple, the Run to the Airport to Declare Undying Love.
Vinterberg takes advantage of the setting, using nature to guide the lives of the farmers—each changing season brings new developments in Bathsheba’s life—and human nature to explore the relationships that make up the tale’s love triangle. It’s mannered but clever, lively direction that values the location—it was shot on location in Dorset, the novel’s setting—and text while focussing on the themes that make a one-hundred-and-forty year old story seem fresh and universal in appeal.
Mulligan and Schoenaerts generate heat in their chaste scenes, slowly building their relationship through mutual respect. He is stoic, she is grounded but wistful.
“It is my intention to astonish you all,” Bathsheba says to her collected staff, and once again Mulligan does impress with a performance that digs deep to deliver a nuanced but soulful take on the shrewd character.
“Far From the Madding Crowd” is an abbreviated retelling of the story. The last version, from director John Schlesinger and star Julie Christie, was one hour longer but Vinterberg brings a luminous energy and modern feel to an old tale.
Synopsis: Tom Hardy plays Bob Saginowski, a mild-mannered bartender at Cousin Marv’s — a Brooklyn neighbourhood pub owned by the Chechnyan mafia. Marv’s bar is sometimes used as a “drop,” a place where gangsters secretly hide money until it is collected by their crime bosses. One night after work, Bob hears a dog whimpering from inside a garbage can. Lifting the lid, he finds a beaten pit bull puppy. He adopts the dog and romances Nadia, (Noomi Rapace), the woman who helps him rescue the animal, but soon a robbery, a scheme by his boss Marv (James Gandolfini) and the dog’s former owner (Matthias Schoenaerts) force Bob to show his true colours. Steve Gow sits in for Mark Breslin this week.
Richard: 3/5 Steve: 3/5
Richard: Steve, this is a boy-and-his-dog story, but it ain’t Old Yeller. Sure there are gun shots and a cute dog, but there is also a slow unveiling of the clues, red herrings and characters with shady pasts. As Bob, Hardy is a cypher; kind to dogs, shy and lovesick, he’s an average neighbourhood guy. Except in this neighbourhood, average guys have pasts, and Hardy does a nice job of playing a guy who is trying to move on while the past tries to stop him in his tracks. What did you think?
Steve: As the deadbeat bartender who may or may not be what he seems, Hardy certainly crafts a compelling character with a unique set of subtleties. Even the gait of Bob’s walk and the curious physicality of Hardy’s character is distinguished and fantastically nuanced. It’s just too bad the story itself feels a bit too played out. There’s nothing quite fresh about the intertwining local gangsters and interlopers here. Plus, a few plot ambiguities don’t help keep the story clear. Or was that the red herrings?
RC: I thought of it as a slice of life, a slickly made look at the underbelly of crime, relationships and dog rearing. Nice performances make up for some plot idiosyncrasies and the cute dog earns some goodwill for a story that doesn’t so much comment on the condition of its characters as it does reveal it. What did you think of Gandolfini in his final role?
SG: It’s a bit of a bittersweet final curtain for Gandolfini — whose character is a bit morose. But the late actor’s presence is as bold as ever and, in scenes with Hardy, the two of them burn up the celluloid — especially in the movie’s softer moments — as when Bob corrects the burly former bar owner about the proper pronunciation of “Chechen.” Surprisingly, the film is actually darkly humorous.
RC: Gandolfini does play to type as the Tony Soprano-Lite bar owner and while it is a part he could play in his sleep, there is something comforting about seeing him, one last time, as a conflicted tough guy. And you’re right, the movie is darkly humorous, until it turns rather dark at the end.
SG: It was also a bit anti-climactic for me. For all the mystery built up around the characters, the not-so-surprising twist at the end tries too conveniently to wrap everything together. The film is entertaining enough but it doesn’t quite add up.
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
