On paper, Adrian Lyne looked like a safe bet when it came to choosing a director to bring an erotic, psychological thriller like Deep Water to life. Based on the Patricia Highsmith novel of the same name — about a husband and wife, the lovers she takes, and the fallout of a lie about murdering her last paramour — it is exactly the type of story that the filmmaker behind 9½ Weeks, Indecent Proposal and Lolita would be suited to. And yet, after a 20-year absence since the release of his last film, 2002’s Unfaithful, Lyne seems to have softened his edges.
The odd couple at the centre of this smalltown intrigue are Vic and Melinda Van Allen, played by Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas, who, after seven years together, have made a pretty iffy deal: she can have affairs with other men as long as she stays in the marriage for the sake of a daughter that only he seems to show much affection for.
That ‘Sad Affleck’ meme comes to mind every time the camera closes in on Vic’s face while watching his younger, dissatisfied wife flirt around with pretty boys at various locations: a neighbour’s garden here, another neighbour’s pool there, even their own dining room. De Armas certainly doesn’t endear Melinda to you, delivering her flagrant marital disregard with stunning viciousness and indifference to her husband’s feelings. But even though she shows motherly distance towards their child, Evelyn, the underlying pain and frustration in her wide eyes do evoke empathy for a woman who feels like a trophy wife and might have been pressured into parenthood too early.
Paparazzi photos of De Armas and Affleck from their brief relationship are believably hornier than most scenes. It is easily Lyne’s tamest erotic thriller.
Affleck, on the other hand, seems miscast as the sort of mild-mannered cuckold who, after teasing the idea that he murdered his wife’s ex-lover who disappeared, may just have developed his own dangerous, sociopathic impulses. Even when the narrative descends into entertaining ’90s-thriller levels of violent absurdity, Affleck is never convincing. He’s unfortunately not as charmingly disturbing as his pal Matt Damon in the title role of The Talented Mr Ripley — another of Highsmith’s psychopathic leading men — and as the movie hinges on this protagonist’s movements, it’s an underwhelming undertaking.
Deep Water couldn’t be further from the glossy, Mediterranean aesthetic of Anthony Minghella’s Ripley adaptation. Most of the action takes place in the expansive homes of a wealthy American community. That everything looks cold and clinical reinforces the Van Allens’ frosty and inhospitable marriage — as does composer Marco Beltrami’s melancholic strings in the score — but it also makes for a drab-looking film that reduces the potency of the sex scenes. They’re tempered further by erratic editing, especially in moments where imagination and reality collide. Paparazzi photos of De Armas and Affleck from their brief relationship are believably hornier than most scenes. It is easily Lyne’s tamest erotic thriller.
The script, co-written by Zach Helm (Stranger Than Fiction) and Sam Levinson (Euphoria, Malcolm & Marie) makes various changes from the original novel as a way to more obviously establish the potential for amorality in its male protagonist. An awkward garden party scene between Tracy Letts’ intrusive pulp-fiction writer Lionel and Vic, discussing the latter’s early retirement from selling a microchip for military use, is subtle but aptly lays the foundation for not only their antagonistic relationship but also for suspicion and paranoia to ferment. Yet the writers pull their punches by the final act, and never follow through with Highsmith’s shocking ending.
The Van Allens rarely function as more than stock characters in need of deeper introspection to warrant our attention, and it is really only through the sensual, kinetic performance of de Armas that any sense of passionate sentiment or nervous emotion is given life. The film is hindered by lacklustre direction and a script barely willing to scrape the surface of what could have been an intense, psychosexual exploration of masculinity, morality and marriage.