A well-to-do husband who allows his wife to have affairs in order to avoid a divorce becomes a prime suspect in the disappearance of her lovers.
Adrian Lyne is no stranger to controversy, he directed the sexual thrillers “9½ Weeks,” “Fatal Attraction,” “Indecent Proposal,” the second big-screen adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel “Lolita,” and “Unfaithful.” Each of his films deals with sexually obsessive relationships, and in many instances, characters tend to meet their demise at the hands of a jealous or embittered partner.
With “Deep Water,” Lyne is back in the directing chair after a 20-year absence doing what he does best, exploring the darker aspects of human sexuality in small-town U.S.A. Vic Van Allen (Ben Affleck) and his wife Melinda (Ana de Armas) live with their young daughter Trixie (Grace Jenkins) in the small Louisiana town of Little Wesley, where Vic is a man of independent means and the owner of a small publishing company. His and Melinda’s marriage is unraveling, but they have a precarious understanding; Melinda is allowed to take any number of lovers, as long as she doesn’t abandon her family.
Vic and Melinda still care about each other, but as Melinda engages with new lovers regularly, sometimes flaunting her relationship in front of their friends, it begins to take a toll on Vic as he becomes irritated with her constant infidelity. When word comes out that a “friend” of Melinda’s, Malcolm McRae, vanished overnight, never to be seen again, people begin to speculate what could have happened to him. Soon after that, the police announce that he was found shot to death, with no discernible suspects. Naturally, some look at Vic, but Melinda can’t believe that he would do something so irresponsible as to put her and Trixie’s future in doubt.
When Melinda takes on a new lover, Joel (Brendan Miller), a young hipster whose good looks eclipse his intellect, he has a brief conversation with Vic one afternoon at a house party Melinda has organized, and during the exchange, Vic takes advantage of Joel’s apparent lack of intelligence and tells him that he was the person who killed Malcolm. Joel initially laughs it off and reminds Vic that he and Melinda are just friends, oblivious to the fact that Vic is aware of their relationship, but when Vic firmly states that he killed Malcolm because he was just friends with Melinda, Joel makes his excuses and leaves, eventually taking a job out of town.
Sometime later, Melinda’s new lover, Charlie (Jacob Elordi), a local musician, mysteriously drowns during a house party in the pool of one of their friends’ backyard and Melinda unreservedly accuses Vic of killing him, even though he claims he was with a gathering of friends at the supposed time of death. Don Wilson (Tracy Letts), a local pulp writer, takes an interest in Vic’s life, particularly in light of the second death, hiring a private detective to follow him around town, but when his investigation amounts to nothing, Don is left with no more than curious suspicion.
When Tony (Finn Wittrock), a third friend of Melinda’s disappears, Don decides to take matters into his own hands, convinced that Vic is the killer, but when he follows him to a quarry to supposedly retrieve a scarf Melinda left behind a day earlier on a family picnic with their daughter Trixie, he discovers the truth about Vic and tries to escape, but things don’t go according to plan, for either man.
Adrian Lyne has always had an uncanny ability to create unbearable tension throughout his movies, and “Deep Water” is no exception. In the scene where Vic is trying to convince Joel that he killed Melinda’s friend, Joel originally laughs it off, assuming he is teasing him, but as the scene progresses, Vic goes from playfully taunting him to no-nonsense earnestness, the determining factor in Joel moving out of state, far away from Melinda. Lyne adds many comparable scenes intermittently, and in all cases, you find yourself immersed in the situation, as if you were right there beside the characters. The tension is so physically unyielding you could cut it with a knife.
Affleck and de Armas became romantically involved during the making of this movie, and they have irrefutable on-screen chemistry, an element Lyne takes full advantage of. While the film version differs in many aspects from the book, the ending is also quite different, and it’s the one aspect that damages the film. Until the finale, we have no idea if Vic is innocent or guilty, but when Don discovers something sinister about him, the whole scene comes out of nowhere and is so completely implausible and nonsensical it sabotages what could have been a powerful outcome. Every scene has to connect to the next. It must do so in an acceptable manner, in a way that makes sense but here, the scene was added to advance the story when no other serviceable explanation could do so, and that is poor storytelling. At times, we must suspend our disbelief, but it is virtually impossible to do so in this case.
In the end, “Deep Water” is a serviceable thriller that keeps you guessing for the most part. If you have read the book you’ll be familiar with the overall story but the film takes much of the novel and changes it around, as most big-screen adaptations tend to do. Affleck and de Armas are in top form, as are the supporting cast and it’s good to have director Adrian Lyne in top form too.
“Deep Water” will debut exclusively on Hulu in the U.S. Friday, March 18th
