For 90 minutes it floats along as a relaxed exploration of four quirky characters — attractive, lustful, bored, somewhat confused — and the shifting ties that bind them, carnally and otherwise.
The setting is the Sicilian island of Pantelleria near Tunisia, where Marianne (Swinton) and her boyfriend of six years, Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts) are staying in a sprawling home atop rocky cliffs, with a nice swimming pool (the film is a reworking of the French New Wave classic "La Piscine," which should give aforementioned film buffs a sense of where things are headed).
Marianne is a rock star not unlike David Bowie — a role that fits the pale, androgynous, chameleon-like Swinton to a T — who is recovering from vocal cord surgery and not allowed to speak.
Boyfriend Paul is a rather brooding, hunky, protective type with his own troubled past, and the two are enjoying a fairly idyllic period of mutual recovery — nice meals, afternoons in the nude by the pool — when the phone rings.
If you're like me, you might once have thought the best Fiennes moment came in that tragic, sexy scene where he brings Kristin Scott Thomas out of the cave in "The English Patient."
Watch him try to woo Marianne back with the help of some warm, freshly made ricotta cheese (this is the aforementioned food porn.) And finally, watch Fiennes dance rapturously to the Stones' "Emotional Rescue."
A Bigger Splash," a Fox Searchlight release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America "for graphic nudity, some strong sexual content, language and brief drug use.
