A BIGGER SPLASH (2015)

For the five or six people still agog over the personal travails of the rich, thin and entitled, Luca Guadagnino unlocks no big splash, but lesser ripples of interest compared to films he made before and after this pas de quatre of a rock star queen, silent from a vocal crisis; a younger, hunky, mentally fragile lover; her former music producer/fuck-mate, a self-invited guest at the isolated Italian villa they’re at; and the producer’s putative sex-pot daughter, quietly insolent and demanding.  (Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schoenaerts*, Ralph Fiennes, Dakota Johnson, respectively.)  Worst of the lot, at first, seems to be Fiennes, a motormouth hedonist & self-centered braggart who even brings in two unwanted guests of his choosing while jabbing away at the fabric of everyone’s lives till they start to collapse.  Guadagnino etches in little flashbacks to explain relationships, but in spite of the visual control, it doesn’t take long to notice he’s dishing out second-hand Bertolucci out of some imagined third-rate Tennessee Williams play.  NIGHT OF THE IGUANA translated into SIROCCO OF THE GECKO?  (Note: Guadagnino just off a Bertolucci documentary when he made this, but that doesn’t explain the purple-prose plot.)

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  *Matthias Schoenaerts’ showcase film this year was DISORDER. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2024/09/disorder-maryland-2015.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  While this title was quickly forgotten, the film it sprang from, Jacques Deray’s THE SWIMMING POOL / LA PISCINE/’69 (not seen here, yet) did gain new interest and the full Criterion re-release treatment.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  In addition to diegetic use of pop karaoke & classic rock on classy vinyl, Guadagnino puts a fair amount of Verdi’s FALSTAFF on the soundtrack.  Why?  Because Falstaff, the butt of all jokes, also a life force who makes the world go ‘round?  Perhaps.  Or an inside joke referring to a two o’clock appointment at the local police station which matches the time Falstaff & Dame Quickly make for his romantic assignation: Dalle due alla tre.