Ben Oliver

Now
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film

A Bigger Splash

We’re all obscene. Everyone’s obscene. That’s the whole fucking point. We see it and we love each other anyway.
19 April 2017

A middle-aged rock star (Tilda Swinton) is on respite in Italy with her boyfriend after losing her voice when an old friend of hers (Ralph Fiennes) turns up out of the blue.

What starts out as a gentle character study quickly becomes tedious and overly ponderous. Then, almost as a two fingers to the audience, something actually happens about 90 minutes in when most of us I’m sure are asleep.

A Bigger Splash isn’t all that bad though. Ralph Fiennes in particular manages to bring an infectious enthusiasm to his role, and the location is beautifully shot. However, the plot tries to go in so many different directions it’s baffling - for such a simple setting this film has fingers in more pies than a leper in a bakery.