A Bigger Splash - 2015 film review

I came to watch A Bigger Splash via a circuitous route. I decided to track down a song which I loved as a teenager. This was 'Ask Yourself Why' - there's a lovely performance by Sally Stevens on YouTube - and although Sally was one of Burt Bacharach's concert singers (and co-wrote one or two songs with him) in this case the composer was the great Frenchman Michel Legrand. He wrote it at roughly the same time as 'Windmills of Your Mind', but this song was much less successful, despite the gorgeous melody and crafty lyrics by the Bergmans.

I discovered that the song was written for the soundtrack of a 1969 film La Piscine, starring Alain Delon and Jane Birkin, of whom I'm a real fan. It's a well-regarded film and I want to watch it, but in the meantime I learned that A Bigger Splash is a loose remake and even if the music isn't quite as good as Legrand's, it's well worth watching in its own right. 

Tilda Swinton plays Marianne, a rock singer who is recovering from a throat operation on the Sicilian island of Pantelleria in the company of her lover Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts). It all seems quite lazy and idyllic until their old friend Harry (Ralph Fiennes) invites himself along, together with his daughter, the coquettish Pen (Dakota Johnson). Harry is Marianne's former lover and soon sexual tensions are simmering.

This is a story of psychological suspense with a crime at its heart, but it's essentially a drama of character rather than a mystery. It's well-made, but outstays its welcome - the later scenes are anti-climactic. However, the acting is enjoyable, with Fiennes playing a very different character from the stiff upper lip types we might associate him with. I look forward to taking a look at La Piscine and comparing the two films.