Once upon a time, landing a ‘highly exposed’ role in a hotly anticipated film was the easiest way to hit the fast-lane to type-casting hell. While that can still happen all too easily, it seems that Dakota Johnson – the young star of the forthcoming big screen adaptation of Fifty Shades Of Grey – is consciously taking a different route. Having apparently shunned offers of bigger budgeted fare, she has instead signed on for A Bigger Splash, with Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes and Oscar winner Tilda Swinton.
The film is an adaptation of the 1969 French film, La Piscine, and features a tense love triangle that develops between an older couple and a younger woman during a vacation. Tragedy inevitably ensues. With Luca Guadagnino (I Am Love) at the helm, the script comes from David Kajganich, who previously wrote 2007’s The Invasion – itself an adaptation of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.
Though, on one level, the premise of the film suggests that this project resides firmly in the same wheelhouse as Fifty Shades Of Grey, the source material tells us otherwise. Falling more into the realm of psychological thriller, the title of this adaptation hints that it will generally be in keeping with the original film – that one being set around a swimming pool, and this one being named A Bigger Splash. While there are elements of seduction and eroticism to the plot, the thrust is most assuredly in the direction of a crime film. Of course, being 45 years later, there is a risk that those story elements might be sensationalized – not least to cash in on Johnson’s Fifty Shades cachet – but we can only hope for the best.
Cameras are set to roll on A Bigger Splash next month, in Italy – at which point we will have some indication as to whether this movie option works for Dakota Johnson. It would be heartwarming to think that, once Fifty Shades Of Grey is released on Valentine’s Day 2015, its lead actress can then showcase the rest of her skill-set in more challenging fare.
