By Raghav Bali

In a world where remakes are decried as the death of cinema, here comes director Luca Guadagnino with the erotic black comedy A Bigger Splash, a reimagining of the Jacques Deray’s 1969 film La Piscine. Held together by a four incredible but vitally unique performances from its four lead actors, Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson and Matthias Schoenaerts – Fiennes himself the real highlight with a role so exuberant and manic you would hard have pressed to ever see him more entertaining than this.

A Bigger Splash sees celebrity rockstar Marianne (Swinton) and her boyfriend Paul (Schoenaerts) vacationing at a friend’s villa situated on the sun-drenched Italian island of Pantelleria. Spending each and every second devouring each other in tantric relaxation, the best cure for Marianne’s healing lost voice, their idyllic lifestyle is put into jeopardy as Marianne’s old manager, ex-lover and forever-friend Harry (Fiennes) comes down to holiday right on their doorstop with his newly found daughter Penelope (Johnson). Marianne and Paul are nonetheless forced by Harry’s sheer forwardness and directed high-energy to invite Harry and Penelope to their rad pad as guests. Paul, a recovering alcoholic, suffers incredible pertubence putting up with Harry’s loud and brash booze-filled antics as Marianne relives her old party-hard lifestyle through Harry’s stories. Penelope acts as the enigmatic buffer throughout, rarely showing much of a glimmer of her true motivations.

A Bigger Splash takes its namesake from a David Hockney pop art painting, which depicts a swimming pool besides a modern house disturbed by a large splash of water created by an unseen figure who has jumped in. In the film Marianne and Paul vacation home is a modern house situation in the archaic Italian countryside. When left to their own, the water thrashing is pretty minimal, but when Harry and Penelope enter the equation it expands exponentially through the film. You’ve got Harry and Paul participating in intense male-on-male dick measuring with splash-filled front-stroke racing. Then there is Harry trying to drop trough every now and again to do a giant cannonball. But the metaphor in it all, comes from the creeping sense of dread the inevitability that engulfs the four. A Bigger Splash aims to show us what happens when stable love collides with jealousy, history and promiscuity.

As soon the plane arrives on the runway and you see an overly-enthusiastic Ralph Fiennes with a stoic Dakota Johnson plodding behind, you already begin to doubt their motivations. Unwelcome guests rarely every become more welcome over time, especially when they are lovers of yester-year. Director Luca Guadagnino often photographs the character interactions in Peep Show-eqsue POV format, so you’re looking into the eyes of these very peculiar characters. Quick whippings pans enliven the tension between the characters and aim to match the heart-pumping and supremely kinetic energy within Harry as he slowly infects all those around him with his self-imposed ‘joy’. As Harry, Fiennes does a comically masterful job in dragging the plot along with his child-like buffoonery, poking and prodding into Paul sensitive topics – talking about Paul’s attempted suicide, and undertaking quite taboo antics – a father-daughter karaoke rendition of ‘Unforgettable’ becomes a bit too sensual.

Despite the beautifully captured serene scenes of Italy, A Bigger Splash pounds out a powerful score reminiscent of the tones of vintage Italian thrillers. The four leads seem enamoured with Italy in different ways, searching for different things. It is undeniably enticing to see the four different archetypes play off each other so entertainingly that often you could miss the subtlety in all the performances. But the film makes sure the setting is culpable in all the decisions the characters make with regards to love, desperation and sex. Each pairing of a the main four, brings about a new revelation for each character, as if they were all meant to be.

If you always wanted to know what would happen if an unwelcome ex with extroversive but conniving tendencies would be like than you are in for the perfect ride with Ralph Fiennes in A Bigger Splash. Dakota Johnson got a lot of criticism for her turn in 50 Shades of Grey but here her portrayal of innocence and eroticism is skilfully captured here. Director Luca Guadagnino is set to remake the classic 1977 Italian horror Suspiria, bringing back the same big four cast members, and with the success of this remake and his handling of the more thrilling elements during the climax, it may mean another remake spun from gold.