Reno

Sep 29, 2016

4.0

**Italian holiday! Musics, dances and the water splash.** No offense whoever liked it, but for me it is one of the bad films of the year. It is not a Hollywood, but the cast is and an English language film entirely shot in Italy. The performances were powerful, but the story was weak, maybe the pace to blame. Because it is a two hour long drama about the triangular (maybe quadrangle) romance who are holidaying in Italy. Musical presentation was the highlight and most of the time sets near water like a pool or the sea where water splash happens very often like it was mentioned in the title. Tilda Swinton speaks rarely in it, but her presence was good. Matthias Schoenerts was one of the main cast, but his frequent on and off makes his presence ineffective. And then Dakota Johnson, I don't know why she's in this, but glamouraouly impacted the storytelling. With all this, Ralph Fiennes led the narration alone, with his brilliant act. Like he was never seen before, awesome dedication. I think it should be watched for him, but not enough to praise the overall film. If you are looking for a normal drama, this is not the right one to pick. This is kind of experimental film, but there's nothing more refreshing, most of the contents were boring. There's no story, just a vacation events where one another all the main characters try to impress. So it is definitely not for everyone, but if you like it, that's good for the film and you, Whatever, I won't favour it unless you got nothing else to try. The music was good, the locations were beautiful, but the film soared with its weakness than the good stuffs and that's how it fared. _4/10_

CinemaSerf

Oct 21, 2024

7.0

Can you imagine being on holiday with your hunky boyfriend only to discover half way through that your slightly dysfunctional ex has arrived with his teenage daughter! Personally, I'd be on the first plane home but rock star "Marianne" (Tilda Swinton) decides to stick it out with her film-making squeeze "Paul" (Matthias Schoenaerts) when "Harry" (Ralph Fiennes) shows up with "Penny" (Dakota Johnson). Initially, the toxicity seems to be under control but quickly we see things spiral into a fairly entertainingly internecine series of scenarios that drown us in a mix of nostalgia, resentment and a fair degree of lust too as the drink starts to flow and the truths start to emerge - be they actually true or not! It's Fiennes who delivers best here, I think, encapsulating the character of the flawed, almost delusional, "Harry" in a fashion that quite successfully gets under your finger nails. Schoenaerts gets naked enough times to justify his inclusion on the eye-candy chart and also provides quite a powerful steam-valve for the young "Penny" who appears to know exactly what she is after here... It's a bit on the long side, and like many of Luca Guadagnino's films does linger a little too much on the admittedly gorgeous Sicilian establishing photography and the pacing can come across as quite lazy at times, but when the poison is flowing effectively through the punchy dialogue, the film allows all four of these rather unlikeable characters to illustrate an holiday from hell that looks set to end in tragedy.