Review: "A Bigger Splash"

Director: Luca Guadagnino
Runtime: 120 minutes

Watching wealthy, powerful people behave badly is one of the great pastimes of mankind. There's a whole subset of Greek myths that dedicated to Olympians using lesser beings to toy with each other (and that's just Zeus). The habit has only intensified in the modern age. Whether we're watching characters on Empire and House of Cards or enjoying an evening with some of the Real Housewives and some cheap Chardonnay, the bad behavior of the elite (and presumed elite) continues to fascinate just as much as it repels. People from all walks of life can be vicious and petty, but dress it up just enough and it can become a glorified guilty pleasure or even prestige entertainment. 

Director Luca Guadagnino taps into this tendency of ours, albeit with reined in high art Euro gloss, deliciously in his new film A Bigger Splash. Set amid the sun-soaked, volcanic Italian island of Pantelleria, this loose remake of Jacques Deray's La Piscine (1969) is, for most of its two hours, a luxuriant treat for film lovers who like their melodramas with a bit of semi-serious restraint. Arriving stateside six years after Guadagnino's previous film, the labored, hermetically sealed I am Love, Splash marks a welcome change of course for the man behind the camera. 

Early on, we learn that rock star Marianne Lane (Tilda Swinton) is hiding out and recovering from vocal chord surgery. As such, Swinton's performance is largely silent. While it seems criminal to purposefully craft a role that robs our Lady of Elfin Cheekbones of the gift of language, her silence becomes a vital part of the juicy dynamic that drives the story.

Or, more specifically, drives the set up of the story. After a brief opening that finds Marianne and her new lover Paul (Belgian hunk Matthias Schoenaerts, of Bullhead and Rust and Bone), they receive a rude and very loud awakening: Marianne's old flame and record producer Harry (Ralph Fiennes) has rolled into town with his laid back vixen of a daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson). They exchange hugs, kisses, and a few awkward intros, and it's not long until they're all sharing living quarters. And from that point on, not much happens. They talk. They reminisce. They drink. They explore. They indulge in tastefully framed and edited sex. Never change, Europe.

Somehow the very aimlessness of it all works in Guadagnino's favor. Personalities click and clash, with the game central quartet treating the material with the right amount of seriousness. For all of the lush photography and snazzy editing, there are moments of subtlety that peek through, and add a veneer of depth to what it often a pretty vacuous exercise. Unlike I am Love, which featured a blink-and-you-miss-it flashback into the heroine's past, Splash builds its trips to the past into the narrative structure. The characters, especially Marianne and Harry, achieve greater complexity thanks to the juxtapositions of who they were and who they've become (or have pretended to become). "You're pretty domesticated for a rock star," says Penelope to Marianne. That sort of literalization could have easily been either a cop out of character development. Instead, it fits seamlessly into the drinking, sunbathing, and music that have all been poured into the film's storytelling cocktail. 

And for a film that spends a lot of time gazing at beautiful, youthful bodies (along with food), it's the two older actors who really invigorate the proceedings. Swinton, even in her silent reservation, is given so much to work with that her gestures and facial movements make perfectly acceptable substitutes for actual words. On the other end of the spectrum is Fiennes, who is gloriously unhinged and profane. Watching him strut and dance around, shirt fully open, to a Rolling Stones song is one of the film's most purely enjoyable scenes. When Fiennes and Swinton are left alone with each other, wandering through seaside communities, A Bigger Splash resembles a fashion-conscious Before Sunrise. There is a rich history between these two that the two actors flesh out in ways that could have easily been glossed over on page. Guadagnino is a cinematic aesthete and understands the power of images, but it's Fiennes and Swinton who make those images worth being seduced by.


This is why it's such a disappointment when the film has to actually have a plot following its climactic moment. As A Bigger Splash winds towards its final frames, the script struggles to create a coherent point out of its boilerplate narrative wrap-ups. Ideas emerge, specifically those revolving around the bubble of privilege these people exist in, but the ending has an aftertaste of half-baked irony. Background details involving Europe's refugee crisis sporadically appear, but the script fails to develop the angle enough to drive the film's point(s) home. The sumptuously photographed frivolity of it all is basically the point of the film as is, and Guadagnino's attempts to make a statement come across as a lazy sketch rather than a fully realized concept. Fiennes' wild man puts it best: "Everyone's obscene...that's the whole point." No more, no less.

Grade: B+

Review: Blood Ties

Director: Guillaume Canet
Runtime: 128 minutes

There's no denying that the 70s were a golden era for gritty crime dramas. Sidney Lumet classics like Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico helped shape the new age of American cinema following the culture shock of Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967). However, those eras have passed, as eras tend to do. Most attempts to recapture that rough and gritty side of 70s cinema tend to get swallowed by the decade's long shadow. Guillaume Canet's Blood Ties, sadly, isn't strong enough to buck the trend. The French director's English-language debut looks the part, but it's undone by a flimsy, cliche-ridden script that has neither originality nor dramatic spark.  

Co-written by director James Gray, Blood Ties has more of his voice than of the Frenchman behind the camera. Though the film is a remake of a French drama, Gray's treatment has effortlessly American-ized it to fit the mold of the classics from the 70s. Similar to Gray's own We Own the Night, Blood Ties centers on brothers Chris (Clive Owen) and Frank (Billy Crudup) as they struggle to live on opposite sides of the law. For the recently released Chris, that means trying to reconnect with his wife Monica (Marion Cotillard) and the children he's barely seen. For Frank, it's a matter of keeping his brother from falling back into old habits, even as he begins a romance with Vanessa (Zoe Saldana), the girlfriend of the recently arrested Scarfo (Matthias Schoenaerts). 

Yet all the talent on screen can't compensate for the fundamental weaknesses of Canet and Gray's writing efforts. Chris and Frank are so lazily defined that there's little motivation to empathize with either. To their credit, Owen and Crudup at least handle the shallow material well enough to suggest where they could have gone with better material. But even with the focus primarily on their intertwined stories, Blood Ties never builds a genuinely compelling emotional or thematic arc. Yes, there are lots of talented people in the cast, but even at two hours, Blood Ties doesn't know how to manage them all properly. Saldana starts off playing a significant role, then practically vanishes until the last second. The reverse happens to Cotillard, who appears briefly in the first half, and then gets dragged into a rushed subplot designed to get the dramatic engine restarted so it can reach the finish line.

For all of the talent wasted, however, the biggest offense is how badly it underuses Schoenaerts. Despite his Belgian origin, the actor has the most convincing accent in the entire film. More importantly, Schoenaerts' handful of scenes have more heat to them than anything else than transpires on screen. Considering the strength of his breakout work in Bullhead, the actor clearly deserves a better English debut vehicle than this. On the other hand, Cotillard, Schoenaerts' Rust and Bone co-star, comes off rather badly in a performance that's all over the place. There are flickers of potential in her work, and there are some convincing moments of acting that rely solely on her facial expressions. Yet when she opens up her mouth, things head south disappointingly fast. The clunkiness of Monica's dialogue doesn't help, but the page doesn't deserve all of the blame in this instance.

With so many moving parts to handle, it doesn't take long for Blood Ties to unravel. Though nothing spectacular, the film's opening stretches mostly get it off to a solid start. As the cliches and messy narrative choices pile up, however, Canet and Gray can't sort their way out. The love triangle with Crudup, Saldana, and Schoenaerts should be the driving force of dramatic tension, but even when Scarfo gets released from prison, there's little to do but shrug and wait for the next tired development. It certainly doesn't help that Crudup and Saldana's affair begins with a handful of rushed scenes that border on laughable. 

In fact, nothing sums up the failings of Blood Ties better than one of the pair's first scenes of courtship. We see them sitting in a restaurant while music plays (no dialogue is heard). Suddenly, Saldana explodes, and leaves Crudup behind. Do we ever learn anything about what might have prompted the outburst? Of course not. The film assumes that the production values (admittedly solid) and music will be enough atmosphere to hold it all together. Instead, it almost looks like a scene from a dating montage in a bad romantic comedy (albeit an extra gritty one). 

What's particularly disappointing about all of this is how little energy Canet's directing has. With a few shoot outs and chases, you'd think the director of Tell No One would be able to conjure up something moderately engaging. Apparently not this time. Effort clearly went in to making Blood Ties look and sound the part. Beyond that, however, Canet and his collaborators go through the rest on autopilot. It's not quite a numbing experience, but it also never finds any moments where it feels like more than hackneyed, surface-level mimicry. 

Grade: C-

Review: "Bullhead"

Director: Michael Roskam
Runtime: 123 minutes

Questions of masculinity run throughout Michael Roskam's agricultural thriller (stay with me) Bullhead. Whether it's an undercover gay cop or a man coping with a horrific injury from his past, the heart of the film, aside from its twisty plot involving a battle between cops and smugglers, comes down to what it means to be a man, and the lengths people go to in order to feel content with their masculinity, whether to themselves, or to others. It's territory rife with potential for cliches, yet Roskam, in an impressive debut, pulls it all together beautifully. With the help of a stunning turn from leading man Matthias Schoenaerts (also seen this year in Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone), Bullhead cements itself as one of the year's most gripping films, foreign language or not. 

However, let's first clear up a bit of date confusion. Bullhead was nominated for Foreign Language Film at the most recent Academy Awards. However, unlike winner A Separation, the film received no theatrical (festivals don't count) US release in the 2011 calendar year. So, for all intents and purposes, for the US (and for all other Oscar categories), Bullhead is a 2012 film with an unfortunate early release date that has killed any chance it might have had of earning some other awards love from the Academy. A shame, because Schoenaerts' performance alone is worthy of some attention come year's end (but more on that later).

In short, the plot involves cattle farmer Jacky (Schoenaerts) being approached to make a deal with some nefarious beef traders, who specialize in using illegal steroids to help the bulls mature faster. Elsewhere, a police officer's murder, and the subsequent investigation, set in motion a related chain of events involving an undercover policeman with connections to Jacky's past. Predictably (one of the few instances where the word applies), the investigation and Jacky's involvement with the beef traders are set on a inevitable collision course. Thankfully, Roskam's storytelling more than compensates for the one seemingly obvious aspect of the story, and keeps one off edge as to exactly how or when the forces on opposite sides of the law will meet. 

Jumping between Jacky and gay cop Diederick (Jeroen Perceval), Roskam manages to impressively weave the story together, little details, side characters, and all, for most of the film's 2 hour duration. As writer and director, Roskam has a mostly successful concept of gradually developing the film, while offsetting said development with lots of fluid camera work. The character of Jacky, in particular, is almost always in movement, his bulky, steroid-enhanced frame often trudging across the screen in some direction. And when Jacky is in stasis, the emotions start to bubble forth, and Schoenaerts handles the releases of deeply felt rage, emasculation, and vulnerability with a beautiful and understated intensity. As important as Dierderick is to the plot, the film's heart ultimately lies with Jacky, his layers peeled back with careful measure. 

Outside of the main duo, the cast is uniformly capable, though they're all ultimately side characters who do more to influence the plot than develop the film's themes. At times, this can lead Bullhead into iffy territory. Towards the middle of the film, the narrative threads surrounding the investigation and Jacky's life start to feel too separate for their own good, despite the efficient cutting. There is also the risk that, with so many supporting characters who strictly serve the plot, the film might alienate some viewers in this midsection. Some films have their weakest moments at the beginning or end, but Roskam's troubles (though never major problems) pop up in the middle, which slightly throws off the narrative progression between its ample set up and its move towards the finish line. 

This small quirk aside (it barely qualifies as an error in my eyes), however, does little to diminish the film's power once it ramps up for the home stretch. As the main threads of the story begin to re-intertwine, Roskam and his co-workers on both sides of the camera are able to make the film really connect. And if the film's quality dips in the middle,the quality of Schoenaerts' work only goes up and up the whole way through. Rich, moody cinematography and effective musical contributions only enhance the experience, and the big emotional (and physical) climax is a rousing success, despite the dour tone. Jacky may spend the majority of the film feeling incomplete as a man, but his journey as handled by Roskam, is wholly satisfying and moving.

Grade: A-

Cannes '12 Review: "Rust and Bone" [Competition]

As bracing, unromantic, and muscular as its male lead, Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone, the follow up to his excellent mob drama/thriller A Prophet (2009), is a solid, well-acted film, one that impresses even as it fails to live up to its predecessor. Though it's doubtful it will make quite the international splash that Prophet did a few years ago, Audiard's drama should perform well, and could even land the director a second nomination for Foreign Language Film, despite the handful of flaws that keep it from true greatness. 

Based on a series of short stories (that are actually set in the United States), Rust chronicles the relationship between Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts, a break out from the Belgian drama Bullhead), a poor club bouncer, and Stephanie (Marion Cotillard), a whale trainer at water park in southern France. After a brief meet up at a club (Ali takes Stephanie home after she's injured in a fight), the pair are reunited after Stephanie has an accident at work that leaves her without both of her legs. From there, the two form a bond that helps Stephanie put her life back together.

Yet as much potential as there is for cliche in the set ups, Audiard and co-writer Thomas Bidegain present the cycle of physical and emotional recovery in such a stark manner that there's little room for the narrative to fall into maudlin histrionics. In this regard, the film mimics the attitude of Ali, a man who is certainly capable of love, but rarely good at expressing it. Whether with his five year old son or with Stephanie, Ali rarely lets his guard down, offering comfort in the smallest amount possible. This has something of a ripple effect across the film and its performances. Schoenaerts and Cotillard deliver strong turns, though it may take audiences a while to connect with them, seeing as much of the emotion is contained to body language and glances. 

Ultimately, it's not a bad thing at all, and allows the performances room to breathe and grow in your head once the credits start rolling. And for those afraid that the film will be too contained for its own good, don't worry. Both leads have moments to let their emotions explode onto the screen, and there's a not a false note to be found in any of it. Cotillard has the right mix of beauty and steely determination for Stephanie, making up for some of the vagueness of the character. Always a watchable screen presence, here she really gets to inject something more than star quality in the role, subtle and flash-free though it may be. Schoenaerts is equally impressive, and where Cotillard communicates beautifully with her eyes, he does so with his hulking body.

Where the tone and execution are less successful are in the overall plot. Though the structure is admirable for trying to make the arcs feel less conventional, at times the different threads feel too fractured. Ali's side job as a street boxer never quite materializes into anything profoundly emotional, despite the immense physicality involved, and at times you wish that Audiard would string more than two scenes in a subplot together to build on the emotion (it's contained enough as it is, why limit its potential further?). But while Ali's fighting and Stephanie's recovery (as well as their gradual relationship) all work despite the bumps in the road, a key story involving Ali and some shady dealings isn't emphasized enough. It appears vaguely two or three times, and then only returns for the sake of dramatic convenience. So even though it matters a great deal to a key supporting character, it's a moment where the film's lack of overt sentiment truly leaves the audience at arm's length, and not in a good way. What really makes this a shame is that it's this incident that sends the film to its conclusion, and the result is that one key scene near the end, while heart-stopping, also feels a tad contrived because of the fragmented narrative that preceded it. 

Even so, said ending is effective on its own terms in how it relates to the tone and themes present. On the technical side, the narrative is carried by sun-blasted, stark images, a limited color palette, and frill-free, hard edits. Audiard also makes smart use of slow motion to highlight the importance of whale training and street fighting to Stephanie and Ali, respectively. Alexandre Desplat (who scored three of the competition films) contributes a low-key, appropriate score, although it's ultimately unmemorable. 


It's worth noting that at the 2009 Cannes Festival, Audiard's A Prophet came in second place, losing the Palme D'Or to Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon. The decision that year must have been tough, as both films, though quite different, stand at roughly the same level. Barring a surprise, however, Audiard is a little further behind Haneke this go-round, which I'll get into further when I finish my Amour review.


Grade: B/B-