Fact #1: Luca Guadagnino‘s sensual, scintillating A Bigger Splash is one of 2016’s best films and was easily one of the two or three finest of the winter-spring season. Fact #2: Americans stayed away in droves. A Bigger Splash made a lousy $2,024,099 domestic plus $5,452,159 in overseas earnings. Fact #3: The Splash Bluray will pop on Tuesday, 9.6, and is currently streamable on Amazon for only $15.
From my 4.18.16 review, “Much Better Splash Than Expected — Perverse, Noirish, High-Style, Sensual”: “This is a noirish Mediterranean hothouse thing — a not-especially-sordid sex and betrayal story that builds so slowly and languidly it feels like there’s nothing going on except for the vibe, and honestly? It’s so lulling and flavorful and swoony and sun-baked that you just give in to it. The undercurrent is…well, gently mesmerizing, and that was enough for me.
“I can’t wait to go there again. I felt like I was savoring a brief vacation. I’m not saying the dramatic ingredients are secondary, but they almost are.
“The title comes from a David Hockney painting, and that in itself should tell you where Guadagnino is coming from. A Bigger Splash is about island vibes and coolness and louche attitudes and to some extent the splendor of the druggy days, and particularly the legend of the Rolling Stones.
“In my mind the island of Pantelleria, which is halfway between Tunisia and the southwest coast of Sicily, isn’t just the setting but a kind of lead character. It colors and tonalizes and blows little mood gusts.
“A Bigger Splash is quite audience friendly. As long as you’re not a moron.
“From a British critic who caught it in Venice: ‘As with I Am Love, Guadagnino has put together something utterly distinctive here, a cocktail of intense emotions, transcendent surroundings and unexpected detours. A real pleasure.'”