A Bigger Splash

For F*** Magazine

A BIGGER SPLASH

Director : Luca Guadagnino

Cast : Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Matthias Schoenaerts, Dakota Johnson

Genre : Crime/Drama/Mystery

Run Time : 125 mins

Opens : 31 March 2016

Rating : M18 (Nudity and Sexual Scenes)

For years, fans have noted an uncanny resemblance between actress Tilda Swinton and the late David Bowie. In this erotic drama, Swinton finally gets to play a rock star, but this is far from a typical paean to the hard and fast living of glamourous rock gods/goddesses. Swinton plays Marianne Lane, a famous singer who is recuperating from surgery on her vocal chords. Marianne and her documentary filmmaker boyfriend Paul (Schoenaerts) are holidaying on the Italian island of Pantelleria. A spanner is thrown in the works of their idyllic getaway by the sudden arrival of music producer Harry (Fiennes), Marianne’s former flame. Harry has his college-aged daughter Penelope (Johnson) in tow. As personalities and egos clash and sexual tensions simmer, our little group isn't going to sit about all quiet-like, with some ugliness bubbling to the surface against the backdrop of some very beautiful scenery.

            A Bigger Splash is a remake of the 1969 French-Italian film La Piscine (The Swimming Pool), starring Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. As odd as this comparison will sound, it might be more helpful to describe the film as a dark take on something like Mamma Mia! A very European frankness with regards to sex and nudity is on full display throughout, and this is a film in which the relationships between the characters are fleshed out via their interactions in various contexts, rather than through clunky exposition. However, this is also a film in which nothing much really occurs, with the bulk of it coming off as Italian tourism board-sponsored scenery porn, and the rest of it is porn in the more traditional sense.

There are farcical and tragic moments, with uneasy tonal shifts that seem intentional if not altogether successful. There is so much lounging and lazing about that when something of actual significance to the plot happens at around the one-and-a-half-hour mark, it feels as if the film has suddenly acquired a focus but does not know what exactly to do with it. During a scene in which Marianne and Harry watch a local woman make traditional ricotta, we hear the migrant crisis in Europe being mentioned via the news on TV in the background. We also hear that boats carrying refugees are stranded off the Pantelleria coast. If director Luca Guadagnino is making some statement about rock star privilege in contrast with the lives of the far less fortunate, said statement is at once on-the-nose and very muddled.

This film marks Swinton’s fourth collaboration with Guadagnino, after The Protagonists, Tilda Swinton: The Love Factory and I Am Love. Swinton’s natural mystique lends itself well to the character of a rock star, and Swinton has stated that Marianne is a mash-up of the afore-mentioned Bowie, Chrissie Hynde and P. J. Harvey. Marianne does not speak throughout the bulk of the film, to avoid straining her vocal chords, and it turns out that this is a character choice on Swinton’s part. The actress made the film shortly after the passing of her mother, and the anguish and loss that she conveys as Marianne are palpable and affecting, even if this is far from the flashiest performance Swinton has given.

The task of chewing up that sun-washed scenery falls to Fiennes, who is at his most comically unrestrained here. It is a fiery, energetic performance, with Fiennes putting it across that Harry’s garrulous, hyperactive nature might be a façade hiding some real brokenness. Fiennes gets to perform a goofy yet mesmerizing dance to the Rolling Stones’ Emotional Rescue and yes, we do get more than a fleeting glimpse of Voldermort’s, uh, wand. The power struggle and competition for Marianne’s affections that exists between Harry and Paul provides the bulk of the film’s tension, with Schoenaerts perfectly serviceable as the “safe”, or “safer”, romantic interest. While Johnson probably won’t want her career to be defined by 50 Shades of Grey, she’s not one to shy away from other risqué material, her Penelope coquettish and aloof. This reviewer thinks the original choice of Margot Robbie might have worked better, though.

Guadagnino had such a good time working on A Bigger Splash that he’s reuniting with the four leads on his upcoming remake of the Italian horror classic Suspiria. There are moments when the film sparks to life, but that only occurs in between long stretches of dilly-dallying across the volcanic island. The talented cast spends most of their time spinning their wheels and this reviewer couldn’t help but be reminded of By the Sea, even though A Bigger Splash is considerably more tolerable than that vanity project. With a setting rife for some deliciously dark goings-on to unfold, A Bigger Splash stirs the pot all too rarely and never comes to the boil.

Summary: Somewhat sexy, somewhat dangerous, beautiful to look at but often pointlessly so, A Bigger Splash’s arthouse-ness overcomes its potential for true intrigue and dark humour.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars.

Jedd Jong 

Hail, Caesar!

For F*** Magazine

HAIL, CAESAR!

Director : Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Cast : Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum
Genre : Comedy
Run Time : 106 mins
Opens : 10 March 2016
Rating : PG

The Coen Brothers peel back the curtain on the turning cogs of the ‘50s Hollywood studio system machine in this comedy. Eddie Mannix (Brolin) is a fixer employed by Capitol Pictures, who has to ensure that celebrities’ dirty laundry remains in the hamper. When Baird Whitlock (Clooney), the star of the blockbuster Biblical epic Hail, Caesar!, is abducted, it’s up to Mannix to procure the $100 000 ransom and rescue the actor. Hobie Doyle (Ehrenreich), another one of Mannix’s clients, is a “singing cowboy” actor who is cast in a period drama helmed by prestigious director Laurence Laurentz (Fiennes) in the studio’s attempt to push him as a big star. He is drawn into Mannix’s mission to find Whitlock. Other figures working on the Capitol Pictures soundstages include actress/synchronised swimmer DeeAnna Moran (Johansson) and song-and-dance man Burt Gurney (Tatum), who harbours a dark secret.

            At the time of writing, Hail, Caesar! has an 82% score from film critics but only a 45% audience score on review aggregating site Rotten Tomatoes. The Coens’ tribute to 50s Hollywood is certainly geared towards cinephiles and packs in plenty of nostalgic period detail, with plenty of homages to the tropes and styles of that era’s moviemaking business. There’s a freewheeling frivolity to the film that might alienate those unfamiliar with the historical context in which the Hail, Caesar! is set. There are Easter Eggs and references galore, most of which were lost on this reviewer. In addition to drawing on the films of Old Hollywood, the Coens reference their own back catalogue: the fictional Capitol Pictures studio also featured in Barton Fink.

The Coens have written and directed some startlingly bleak black comedies, and in contrast, Hail, Caesar! is a frothy and frolicsome enterprise. By having the main character be a studio fixer, whose job it is to keep everyone in line and on brand, the Coens have the opportunity to satirise the iron grip the Old Hollywood studio system had on its contract stars. We do get some of that, to be sure, but the film favours silliness over bite at every turn.

            Because of the clout the Coens have built up over their career, they have access to some big names and many of the cast members in Hail, Caesar! are returning Coen Brothers alumni. Eddie Mannix is a fictionalisation of the real-life Hollywood fixer-turned producer of the same name. Brolin captures the character’s strong work ethic and is a reliable straight man of the “comically serious” variety, trudging through the over-the-top shenanigans that occur throughout the film. In O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Intolerable Cruelty and Hail, Caesar!, Clooney plays characters who aren’t too bright, forming the so-called “numbskull trilogy”. Here, Clooney’s Baird Whitlock is modelled after Kirk Douglas; his character in the film-within-a-film being a Roman centurion who is eventually moved by the power of Jesus Christ. Clooney’s lackadaisical charm shines through; Clooney clearly very comfortable working with the Coens.

            A selection of famous faces pop up in extended cameos that could be described as “gratuitous” if one isn’t in a particularly charitable mood – but we’ll be darned if the casting isn’t spot on. Swinton hams it up in a dual role as rival gossip columnists who happen to be twin sisters. Coens oft-collaborator Frances McDormand is a film editor who has a scarf-related mishap and Jonah Hill shows up as a surety agent. Johansson plays an Esther Williams-esque actress and participates in a lavishly choreographed synchronised swimming sequence. Her character is perceived as sweet and elegant, when she’s actually a surly, irascible chain-smoker. Tatum is absolutely hilarious here, while also getting to show off some very fancy footwork in a tap dance number that’s a tribute to Gene Kelly. Ehrenreich may not be as well-known as his co-stars, but he’s plenty likeable as the unrefined singing cowboy who has his life taken over by the studio.

            Hail, Caesar! is plenty of very broadly played fun and is sure to appeal to viewers who have an affinity with the movies of 50s Hollywood and the behind-the-scenes gossip that came with them. Alas, it’s far from the Coens’ sharpest material and there are instances where they seem to be caught up in the minutiae and get a little carried away with their elaborate odes to this bygone era of filmmaking. This can be viewed as something of a companion piece to Trumbo, set against the same political climate in Hollywood but played straight, natch. If it’s nostalgia, whimsy and a couple of intricately staged musical numbers that you’re after, the Coens have got you covered.

Summary: A light-hearted romp through 50s Hollywood, Hail, Caesar! is packed with loving homages but does play a little too “inside baseball” for non-initiates to get into.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong