Director: Luca Guadagnino
As with I Am Love, A Bigger Splash indicates that Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino is one who is remarkably in tune with the senses. One would be hard-pressed to find a frame in his films where there isn’t some sort of touching going on—whether that be the feel of the mud coating a vacationing rock goddess or a father’s hands touching his newly-discovered daughter’s shoulders. As a stylist, he is incomparably fetishistic. One would be mistaken to claim that his filming of Dakota Johnson is an argument about “the male gaze”—he is simply enamored with the erotic, and his lingering on her skin attempts to convey its irresistibility to the characters involved. Because Guadagnino makes films about pleasure, the tease of a prepared food is held in equal weight as a bare shoulder. When A Bigger Splash is content to work as a sex drama, much of it is engaging, even if Guadagnino is occasionally so aggressive in his technique that the effect is jarring (that being said, there is certainly an intentional “violence” to some of the images). Unfortunately, a parallel story regarding a refugee crisis never extends far enough from the periphery to be of much interest, resulting in the narrative’s central twist landing with a thud. Guadagnino is making the world’s most sophisticated porn films, but he has yet to convince that he can play with deeper, less immediately sensual ideas.
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For Reel 
Liked the film a bit more than you did, but really enjoyed reading this review!
Comment by screenzealots June 17, 2016 @ 2:08 pm