A Bigger Splash

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Luca Guadagnino/Starring: Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Matthias Schoenaerts, Dakota Johnson and Aurore Clement

I usually detest remakes; finding them an unnecessary and inadequate copy of the original but Italian director Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash, which re-imagines Jacques Deray's 1969 La Piscine, establishes its own dramatic identity. Guadagnino transports the original story from the French Mediterranean to a Sicilian retreat, where psycho-sexual tensions motivate the characters actions. Guadagnino's film is a sensual delight. Hedonistic diversions serve as opportunities to not only unshackle the sexual potential of a friendly sojourn, but also crash a couple's almost inviolable marriage.

The premise is something we've seen a billion times before; a small group of people gather together in a scenic retreat presumably to relax and enjoy one another's company. What follows thereafter is also something we've seen many times before; characters dealing with barely suppressed acrimony, sexual tension and past resentments, which eventually erupt. In this case, the end result is extreme and tragic. Though the plot is hardly new, Guadanino's cast makes the story's psychological richness compelling.

Tilda Swinton plays Marianne Lane; a rock star of considerable renown, who, with her documentary filmmaker boyfriend Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts) decide to rent a place in Sicily for a getaway that serves in a large part as a convalescent retreat. Marianne has just had throat surgery, which has rendered her literally speechless--or nearly so. While Marianne recovers from her surgery, Paul recovers from alcoholism. From what we see of their physical relationship, we can safely assume Paul and Marianne are very much in love.

But their blissful state is interrupted by the arrival of Marianne's old flame and Paul's former friend and collaborator; Harry Hawkes (an exuberant Ralph Fiennes) and a beautiful, young woman he introduces as his daughter; Penelope Lannier (Dakota Johnson). From Marianne and Paul's reactions to his presence, we can safely gather they aren't entirely happy to see their manic friend, for reasons partly obvious.

As the parties spend time under one roof, respective back stories come to the fore in flashbacks as we see Marianne and Harry from long ago when their passionate relationship burned stellar hot. We also see Harry and Paul in the past during the making of a music documentary. After Harry asks Paul if he would like to meet Marianne, the documentarian eagerly assents. Harry's act of generosity comes back to haunt him after Paul and Marianne's relationship becomes viable. Interestingly enough, we never see Paul and Marianne interact in a flashback.

Though Marianne seems firmly committed to Paul, Harry slowly makes attempts to seduce her and woo her back. Meanwhile, Penelope begins her own slow seduction of Paul, who resists her in spite of her powerful sex appeal.

The sensual charms of the Sicilian milieu are irresistible not only to the characters but may be to the audience as well. Guadagnino spares none of our senses. The group's naked or half-naked bodies delight the eyes while the island's culinary pleasures tempt our palates. A delectable sight of a large fish cooked and coated in a thick layer of breading is but one of the film's gustatory visuals. A scene where Harry shares a memory from his professional life as a music producer on the Rolling Stones' album Emotional Rescue serves as prelude to his actually playing the song of the same name for the gathering, who fall under the music's enchanting spell. No one is more carried away by the music than Harry, who ends up outside, rapturously overcome by the music.

The contrasts in personality between Harry and Paul are very conspicuous. Where Harry always seems annoyingly "on" and always game for a good time, Paul is more reserved and introspective. As the film moves along and Harry's play for Marianne becomes more aggressive, one might wonder which man is better suited to be her companion. Everything in Harry's nature seems related to his passion for music, which makes he and Marianne the rock star, the more logical pairing.

As the four loll about the pool and wander about the arid surroundings, the tension begins to build. Harry presses Marianne for sex, hoping to rekindle their former relationship while Penelope never tires of assailing Paul's nearly impenetrable wall.

During a village festival, Harry commandeers a karaoke machine in a town bar. Harry's spirited performance begins to draw a large crowd. During one song, he waves Penelope over. She joins him in a sexy, highly inappropriate dance that raises a few eyebrows in the village.

As Harry and Penelope's vacation nears an end, all the pent-up tension detonates, resulting in a tragedy that seems almost inevitable.

The story's conclusion leaves the audience with several questions. When Paul and Penelope wander off on a day-long walk, does he finally give into temptation as she stands beside a rocky pool, naked and inviting? Is the father/daughter relationship between Harry and Penelope really a sham? Are they in fact, lovers? Their relationship is called into question when Marianne and Paul discover Penelope is actually 17 though she has claimed all along to be 22. And Penelope's cold demeanor toward Marianne is that of a jealous rival rather than a daughter.

A film like A Bigger Splash relies heavily on its cast to handle its rich psychology, which is not a problem for someone like Tilda Swinton, who excels in roles like Marianne. Schoenaerts' broody performance is a perfect counterpoint to Fienne's Harry, whose emotions and simmering sexuality are never concealed. Harry's sexual power is a bomb blast that spreads in all directions. We even see its subtle, barely perceptible effect on Paul. Fienne's performance is almost over-the-top but he grounds his character enough to make him credible. He certainly makes everyone else look as though they are grossly underplaying their parts. I don't know that Johnson's character is drawn as well as her co-stars but she handles her role well enough.

One would think Guadagnino might indulge himself in visual sweeps of his Sicilian home but he never goes for breathtaking pans or arresting long shots of the island's topographical beauty. Though the surroundings are very much in evidence, he never lets the film become a mere travelogue.
Guadagnino leaves us with unsolved mysteries that he wisely avoids addressing. We come away from the film, having had an intoxicating, sensual experience. Behind the epicurean delights and Mediterranean sunshine is an engaging but ultimately tragic story.

Hail, Caesar!

**Spoiler Alert**

Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen/Starring: George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Alden Ehrenreich, Frances McDormand, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill

Joel and Ethan Coen have made exceptional films in their careers and some irredeemable time-wasters. One can count a fair number of comedies in their oeuvre but for me, I've always preferred their dramas, which sometimes contain their brand of dark humor. I realize my low opinion of their comedies is in the minority. People insist Raising Arizona, O Brother, Where Art Thou and Burn After Reading are hilarious but they only leave me cold. (I've heard some movie lovers even suggest that The Hudsucker Proxy and The Ladykillers are funny... not to me.) I'm still not wild about The Big Lebowski but I think Jeff Lebowski is a comic master creation. The Coen Brothers' comedies are too self-aware to be truly funny.
That being said, I found their new film; Hail, Caesar to be unfunny, unfocused and unfailingly tedious. I heard one woman laugh through the entire film but there is always that one person in the audience who can be counted on to find every gag and comic situation funny even when they aren't. In spite of the woman's compulsive laughter, the patrons in my immediate vicinity--and in most of the theater--were mostly silent. So it goes; everyone is entitled to laugh; it certainly isn't a crime, but maybe it's a case of sour grapes on my part, who knows?.

The Coen Brothers celebrate/skewer old Hollywood; the characters and genres that ruled the screen and the dramas that raged off of it.

Capitol Pictures' production manager Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) broad job description makes it necessary for him to also manage scandals that threaten to ruin actor's lives and derail movie projects. When the film begins, we see him visit a home where an intoxicated, high-profile actress is being photographed pornographically. Mannix, who seems accustomed to damage control of this ilk, manages to keep the situation from becoming headline fodder by pulling the starlet from the scene and paying off a couple of cops who arrive on the scene. When not defusing near-disasters, Mannix tends to studio production business. One film over which he presides is a big-budget, Ben-Hur-like epic called Hail, Caesar, which stars Hollywood mega-star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney).

During production, Whitlock is kidnapped; leaving Mannix to contend not only with a crime, but a situation that could conceivably become a media typhoon. Compounding his woes are the cost overruns Whitlock's absence creates for the the film. And yet another of Mannix's vexations are the Hedda Hopper-like, twin gossip columnists; Thora and Thessaly Thacker (Tilda Swinton, sporting great alliterative names); who skulk about the studio lot, sniffing for scandal and gossip.

But we also meet the film's other dramatis personae, like Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), the singing cowboy of the big screen, who Mannix eventually recruits in his effort to find Whitlock and DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson); an Esther Williams-like star whose personal troubles become studio troubles. We also meet Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum); a song and dance star who later plays a part in the kidnapping drama.

Whitlock awakes in a posh, seaside home and after wandering around, he finds his kidnappers, who turn out to be a disgruntled group of screenwriters who are fed up with the industry's obeisance to the bottom line. The audience learns what it may have suspected all along; the group's agenda is strictly communist.
Meanwhile, Mannix assembles a cash payment after receiving the group's $100,000 ransom note while trying desperately to keep the kidnapping from leaking to the studio, the public and the press.

The film reaches for laughs when Hobie becomes a substitute cast member for director Laurence Laurentz's (Ralph Fiennes) tux and gown drama; a movie for which his Texan accent and cowboy persona are hopelessly ill-suited. The film's most inspired comedic scene is Mannix's meeting with local religious figures to ensure the movie's subject matter offends neither Christians nor Jews. The exchanges between the rabbi and catholic priest are peppered with a few barbed, comments about scripture.

As the mystery behind the kidnapper's intent comes to light, Whitlock becomes an ardent believer in their cause before eventually returning to the set of his movie.

The various secondary character's stories never add up to much, particularly DeeAna Moran's and Hobie Doyle's, who are more representations of old Hollywood types than people.

The Coen Brothers' film seems like an opportunity to poke fun at the anti-communist hysteria of the time. We see a boat containing Whitlock's captors and Burt Gurney approach a Russian submarine, which surfaces near the California shore, awaiting the bag containing the $100,000, which is being offered up as a gift. The absurdity of the scene seems to reflect the outrageous, right-wing, Cold War paranoia that held America in its grip during that period.

I suppose the film will seem funny to those who are attuned to the Coen Brothers' sense of screwball. I went into the movie expecting to laugh but unfortunately, their film fell flat. It isn't the first time I've had that reaction to one of their comedies and it may not be the last.
I'll move on now and hope their next movie will be more fun than this slog.

Only Lovers Left Alive

**Spoiler Alert**

Directed by Jim Jarmusch, Starring: Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, John Hurt and Mia Wasikowska

Jim Jarmusch's vampire film is stylish, moody, atmospheric and anything but horrorifying or thrilling but it is terrifically cast and acted. It's also other than something Bela Lugosi or Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart might have found themselves in.

Jarmusch in never one to slavishly cling to genre conventions, like his western Dead Man or martial arts film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. His are more contemplative, cerebral affairs and so it is again in Only Lovers Left Alive.

We find ourselves in two settings: the labyrinthine medina of Tangier and a room awash in instruments in a shabby room in a shabbier building in Detroit. A vampiress named Eve (Tilda Swinton) lives in a room hidden from the world in the medina while her vampire husband Adam (Tom Hiddleston) lives hermetically in said room in the Motor City.

The two live their days (nights really) trying to stay supplied with healthy blood, which grows increasingly difficult to find in this world of tainted hemoglobin. While Eve relies on a fellow vampire Marlowe (John Hurt) for her precious supply, Adam visits a hospital to pay off a doctor named Watson (small role for Jeffrey Wright) for his. From conversation between the vampires, we learn each has been alive for centuries. Adam is an accomplished musician who once provided Schubert with music the famous composer claimed as his creation. Marlowe is actually the Christopher Marlowe; once Shakespeare's rival and in the film, tha acknowledged author of the Immortal Bard's great plays. Adam still records music though his current instruments of choice are mostly relegated to electric guitars and drums. While Marlowe still writes and Adam composes, its never clear what Eve's pursues in her spare time.

Jarmusch's film isn't plot-driven; it relies heavily on mood and the characters' backstories to create what little drama and tension are sprinkled among scenes of vampire angst and dark, ill-lit interiors. Only Lovers Left Alive still manages to be watchable. Tilda Swinton's unique, not-of-this-world looks and Tom Hiddleston's broody impatience with what the vampires call the "zombie world;" the human species, keep us watching when the film's temperature seems to be set at almost absolute zero.

After Eve flies (on an airline, not on bat-wings) to Detroit to be with Adam, her sister Ava comes to stay and in doing so, inadvertantly kills Adam's friend Ian (Anton Yelchin) after a night of clubbing. His death forces Adam and Eve to flee Detroit for the safer, more remote environs of Tangier, only to find Marlowe dying, which threatens their supply of life-giving blood. The loss of Marlowe brings about soul-searching and the unavoidable but crucial hunt for blood via the direct source; in this case; two lovers out at night for a stroll.

The vampire culture presented in Jarmusch's film is nothing new; immortality, historic contributions to art, existential doubt, etc, but he brings his brand of humor to the proceedings, and characters who seem more like artists than vampires. He also makes subtle, political statements about man's physical self-contamination and in setting half the story in Detroit, manages to comment on the decay of American cities brought on by real blood-suckers: corporate America and the depredations it has visited on workers and families as the population of a once-thriving factory town dwindles.

Only Lovers Left Alive isn't an ambitious film, but it has the offbeat stamp of an unpredictable auteur; one that manages to show us something that doesn't have product tie-ins or needless, gimmicky 2D and 3D options. We can always count on Jarmusch to lead us off and away from the assembly-line cinema of Hollywood. I'm sure he intends to keep it that way.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

**Spoiler Alert** Dir. Wes Anderson. Starring: Ralph Fiennes, et al.

It's difficult talking about my impression of Wes Anderson's new film because I want to celebrate his feverish imagination, which seems boundless. On the other hand, I tire of his stylistic tics and the whimsy that's come to typify his movies. I'm a huge fan of Rushmore; a film that announced a style and manner of storytelling that wasn't fantasy but wasn't reality either; a kind of universe only Anderson could craft and one that characterizes his work. Since Rushmore, Anderson has continued on this course; The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Moonrise Kingdom and now The Grand Budapest Hotel.

His latest has become a little more un-moored from reality (nothing wrong with that) but I wonder if Andersonian whimsy has become wearisome.

I always believed Van Gogh's work resembles no others. If one were asked to identify his work among a thousand other paintings, one could easily identify a Van Gogh; his style is that distinctive. The same can be said of Anderson's films. No other filmmaker's work matches Anderson's in look, tone and characterization and that is something to be commmended. But that uniqueness can sometimes get in the way of one being fully immersed in his stories. So many images and quirky camera movements often draw attention to themselves in a way that distracts the viewer from the story. The Grand Budapest Hotel is no exception.

There is so much to admire and like about his new film; the set designs, the rich, striking visual aesthetic and Ralph Fiennes' comic performance, around which everything in the film orbits. I also liked the hotel lobby; a vast interior often seen in a long, wide-shot; a visual that calls to mind the lobby in The Shining with its exaggerated dimensions, which reduces all human activity to insectile proportions. It is also interesting how the hotel's cake-like exterior is recalled in the pink confectioner's boxes later in the film and the pastry devoured by prisoners.

The story is a story within a story as Tom Wilkinson the author tells the story of the hotel's owner and former bellboy (F. Murray Abraham as an adult, Tony Revolori in the past), who in turn tells the story of the erstwhile concierge of the once grand hotel. It is a clever narrative approach, which Anderson handles deftly.

Ralph Fiennes plays the concierge; Gustav H, whose demanding attention to detail and client satisfaction makes him the consummate role model for the young lobby-boy he takes on as a protege. Gustav's habit of romancing elderly guests of the hotel takes a dangerous turn when he is accused of murdering Madame D.; an elderly customer Gustav has seduced for many seasons. Hi-jinks and mayhem ensue, involving many--an incredible cast Anderson assembled for the film. Gustav first avoids capture then is apprehended, subsequently serving time in prison.

I found some scenes amusing but as the film wore on, the fairy-tale setting and Anderson's odd-ball characters all wear out their welcome. A scene where soldiers billeted in the hotel shoot at one another from hotel room doors is something that should have been funny but falls flat as an old joke.

The preview promised much; I thought Anderson would finally bring me back into his fan-fold but half-way through the film, I realized I was in for another disappointment.

I've met many people who believe Anderson is a genius--a claim I can't entirely deny. Watching his film, one recognizes his fierce intelligence; a creative brilliance running through every scene. Unfortunately I believe him to be a genius without a masterpiece. He may reward my patience with something otherworldly and magnificent someday. The Grand Budapest Hotel offers intimations of greatness; a summit he has yet to reach. I'm sure he'll get there eventually.