Butler's Cinema Scene

Matthias Schonhart, Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, Ralph Fiennes

“A BIGGER SPLASH”  My rating: B 

125 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Among the many on-screen personas of Ralph Fiennes are terrifying mob boss, casually cruel concentration camp commander, serial killer and silky aristocrat.

But nothing he’s done has quite prepared us for the acting dervish on display in “A Bigger Splash.”

In Luca Guadagnino’s steamy and visually ravishing display of psychological noir, Fiennes plays Harry, a renowned music producer who unexpectedly drops in on his old flame, rock star Marianne (Guadagnino regular Tilda Swinton), and her paramour, Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts).

Marianne and Paul are living in glorious isolation in a hilltop villa on the Sicilian island of Pantelleria, where they lounge about naked and make furious love in any and all rooms. Their choice of a retreat suggests they just want to be left alone, but neither can turn down Harry, a natural-born glad-handing speed freak who guzzles vino, pees where he likes, and is determined to be the life of the party.

For the music mogul was once Marianne’s lover and the force behind her international career. And as their relationship was winding down, Harry groomed Paul, a documentary filmmaker, to take his place in Marianne’s bed.

So suddenly the couple has as  a houseguest the motormouthed Harry, an interloper who seizes control of Marianne’s record collection, buzzing from one topic to another, erupting in rock ‘n’ roll survival stories and doing an insanely cool and ridiculously sinuous open-shirted dance to the Stones’ “Emotional Rescue.”

David Kajganich’s screenplay — an adaptation of the 1968 French film “The Swimming Pool” — centers on the question of just why Harry has shown up at this time.

For Marianne and Paul are extremely vulnerable. She’s had throat surgery to reverse the damage done by her larynx-shredding singing style. There’s no way of knowing if she’ll be able to resume her career; in the meantime she has been ordered not to speak above a whisper.

This prompts the irreverent Harry to ask Paul: “Does she write your name when she comes?”

Ralph Fiennes, Dakota Johnson

Paul, meanwhile, is trying to stay straight after a stint in rehab.  With Harry working his way through the villa’s wine cellar, this is a constant challenge.

But wait, there’s a wild card here.  Harry has shown up with Penelope (Dakota Johnson), whom he introduces as the daughter he never knew he had.  Evidently Penelope, who says she’s 23 years old, was the result of one of Harry’s youthful indiscretions on a tour of the States. Now she’s come along for a bit of father/daughter bonding.

Except that their familiarity bleeds into the creepy side of the parenting spectrum. Penelope is one sexy nymph.  Harry has a Trumpish eye for his little girl — he kinda wishes she wasn’t his daughter.

In the meantime, Penelope has no qualms about dangling herself in front of the newly sober Paul.

All this swirling sexuality and the possibility of emotional betrayal keeps “A Bigger Splash” percolating until a furious outburst that will leave one of the quartet bobbing lifeless in the swimming pool. But who will it be? And who will strike the fatal blow?

The film’s final 20  minutes, which introduce an overworked police detective (Corrado Guzzanti), are a bit of a letdown. “A Bigger Splash” isn’t really about crime and punishment. It’s an examination of destructive relationship dynamics among a privileged few.

And the cop — dealing with the drowning deaths of a half-dozen dark-skinned refugees who had paddled to the island from far-flung trouble spots — must decide how much energy to devote to the death of a pampered white person.

Among the film’s great strengths is Yorick Le Saux’s superb cinematography, which captures Pantelleria’s dry winds, dusty landscape, swaying palms and crashing surf with such seductive detail that the impulse is to contact a travel agent to claim our own day of glorious lazing in the sun

| Robert W. Butler