On the small Southern Italian island of Pantelleria, recuperating rock star Marianne (a Bowie-like Tilda Swinton) and her boyfriend Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts) are languishing in private, their days spent idly driving to the beach and laying about their pool. They’ve both got their demons — he’s a recovering addict, she’s trying to stay mute following vocal surgery — as well as a shared demon in Harry (Ralph Fiennes), Marianne’s music producer ex and a certified loose unit. When he turns up on the island out of the blue with his newly-discovered daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson), he breaks the surface of the couple’s convalescence and the waters don’t stop rippling until the final credits roll. Yet another beauty from Italian visionary Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, I Am Love), A Bigger Splash is a scintillating slow-burn of a film.
★★★★ “Everything in this movie is so ripe and voluptuous that watching it doesn’t seem enough, you want to take a bite out of it” — Rolling Stone
English, Italian
France, Italy