A Bigger Splash
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: May 4, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ConsequenceBlake GobleMay 12, 2016
Guided more by emotion and imagery than by any conventional plot, A Bigger Splash is a wicked, mysterious, ceaselessly sexy, and experiential carnal summer whirl. Read full review
91
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 4, 2016
A Bigger Splash has neither a clear center nor a clear moral, and it's all the better for it. This is a film about behavior, not plot — and how people are ruled by emotion, and not logic. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMay 13, 2016
Guadagnino, who directed Swinton in the 2009 Italian gem "I Am Love," has kept the core premise - and the sensuality - of Jacques Deray's original. (Delon and Schneider go skinny-dipping, too.) Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayMay 12, 2016
A Bigger Splash manages to infuse even the most straightforward questions with vicariously alluring ambiguity. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversMay 4, 2016
Everything in this movie is so ripe and voluptuous that watching it doesn't seem enough, you want to take a bite out of it. Read full review
83
The Film StageZhuo-Ning SuJun 14, 2016
Realized with extraordinary craft and verve even if insufficiently contextualized, A Bigger Splash might not have achieved the desired impact, but the wicked spell it casts remains a bona-fide stunner. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyChristian HolubMay 4, 2016
This reworking of the 1969 erotic thriller "La Piscine" beautifully explores the difficulties of communication. Aging rock star Marianne Lane (Tilda Swinton), muted by vocal surgery, is dealing with Harry (Ralph Fiennes), a former flame. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 12, 2016
There’s a jarring shift in tone and story in the last act, but the performances — particularly towering ones by a way-over-the-top Ralph Fiennes and an under-the-radar Tilda Swinton — perfectly balancing each other, carry the day. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangMay 4, 2016
[Guadagnino's] made the rare movie that, for all its delight in its own beautiful surface, turns out to be altogether less shallow than it appears. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisMay 4, 2016
The world that Mr. Guadagnino creates is at once seductive and aspirational, and another reminder that movies have always excelled at stoking consumer desires. Read full review
80
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeSep 15, 2015
It’s a lush and intriguing experience that works so well for so long that it can’t be undone by a few flaws. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 12, 2015
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. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 12, 2015
In the dramatic stakes, the dining table comes a distant second to the swimming pool: a place to undress, bask, flirt, vie for attention, compete, cool off and burn. It’s a shimmering tank of romance, jealously and intrigue, and A Bigger Splash plunges into the deep end. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounSep 12, 2015
It's an endearingly loopy, occasionally half-cooked but always ambitious film. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 12, 2015
For Guadagnino, it’s not the characters’ fates that matter so much as their dynamics, which Kajganich and the director manipulate with the sort of take-no-prisoners attitude typically reserved for theater, pushing the entire ensemble to their full potential. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 12, 2015
The acting throughout is superb, with Swinton sitting back and watching with obvious pleasure as Fiennes gnaws up the scenery and beach furniture with genuine vim. Schoenaerts once again proves himself a charismatic and compelling actor alongside the excellent Johnson. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldMay 19, 2016
Luca Guadagnino’s moody drama A Bigger Splash is, unexpectedly, a study in charisma, with two wildly different performances at its center. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMay 19, 2016
A Bigger Splash takes four characters with strong needs, drops them into a single location and invites us to watch what happens. It’s strange how compelling that can be. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMay 19, 2016
In its last half-hour, A Bigger Splash becomes a specific kind of story, and it’s not as pleasurable or strange as what preceded it. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerMay 12, 2016
Fiennes really shines here, with an electric-cocaine vigour and lust for life. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrMay 12, 2016
The performances are expert. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreMay 11, 2016
The performances are of the meaningful, lingering stares variety, everybody working out what everybody else’s game is. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireMay 5, 2016
Simultaneously lush and lurid, sumptuous and startling, A Bigger Splash never goes where you expect, even as its undercurrent of danger is unmistakable from the start. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickMay 4, 2016
Italian director Luca Guadagnino draws terrific performances from his four stars. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineSteve MacfarlaneMay 2, 2016
What intrigues, if in a lurid sort of way, is the film's fudging of projected viewer desires with its characters'. Read full review
75
The PlaylistJessica KiangSep 12, 2015
Its very wonkiness is one of the things that makes A Bigger Splash a good time — the sense of a filmmaker, perhaps aware that the story he's telling is not terribly deep or philosophically provocative, allowing himself to go off the rails every now and then in how he's telling it. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMay 2, 2016
A Bigger Splash is fiercely unrelaxing, and impossible to ignore. You emerge from it restive and itchy, as though a movie screen could give you sunburn, and the story defies resolution. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenMay 18, 2016
As a mood piece, A Bigger Splash leaves a lasting impression. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerMay 4, 2016
The cast is uniformly strong, and willing to go wherever Guadagnino takes them, in however little clothing he deems necessary; the ensemble-wide equal-opportunity nudity is almost frequent enough to qualify as confrontational. Read full review
63
USA TodayBrian TruittMay 5, 2016
What A Bigger Splash does have in its favor is standout acting by Ralph Fiennes and Tilda Swinton, who gets to channel her inner Ziggy Stardust. Read full review
60
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonMay 4, 2016
Guadagnino inserts a plot thread indicting Europe's response to the migrant crisis, shoehorning an issue of utmost gravity into a pulpy sex thriller. Not even this flamboyant project, however satisfying in its excesses otherwise, can accommodate the inept civics lesson. Read full review
60
EmpireDamon WiseFeb 15, 2016
Ralph Fiennes dazzles as a rock’n’roll maverick in a stylish, unorthodox erotic drama that tries hard but fails to maintain its eccentric momentum. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungSep 12, 2015
The film feels empty and intellectualized at the core, where it should feel powerfully emotional. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonMay 19, 2016
A Bigger Splash? More like a small trickle. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMay 12, 2016
Is it A Bigger Splash or A Bigger Bore? Despite a strong cast, gorgeous cinematography, and a suffocating sense of sexual tension, this movie takes far too long to get off the ground. Read full review
50
Screen DailyLee MarshallSep 12, 2015
A slight story that aspires to be a thriller but ends up as a rather flat melodrama about a rock-star generation struggling to deal with its twilight years. Read full review
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