Deep Water Review

Out today, streaming on Hulu is Deep Water, the erotic thriller by director Adrian Lyne--a director well versed in the genre (Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal, and Unfaithful). This time he pairs Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas as a dysfunctional couple who gets their kicks in demented ways. In order to keep his wife Melinda (Ana de Armas) from divorcing him, Vic (Ben Affleck) allows her to have as many lovers as she wants. She parades them around the house in front of Vic, constantly trying to get a rise out of him and getting off on his jealousy. However, when her lovers start to mysteriously go missing their world starts crashing down around them.

Deep Water was unceremoniously dumped onto streaming without much fanfare to be swiftly forgotten, and honestly...it's pretty easy to see why. Watching the film, I really couldn't understand what attracted these two stars to the project. While there is talent involved both in front of the cameras, as well as behind, Deep Water quite simply, is a hot mess. Don't get me wrong, I love myself a trashy guilty pleasure from time to time, but there are too many stretches of the film that just fumble along and feel pointless. To be a true guilty pleasure you've got to at least be thoroughly entertaining, and there were definitely parts of this that were a bore. That said, the film does still contain some incredibly ridiculous content too...it's just more few and far between than I'd like here.

One such absurd aspect is the film's ending, which honestly needs to be seen to be believed. I'm not sure who signed off on it, but it was unintentionally hilarious and almost makes the whole thing worth it. Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas definitely gave more to the roles than the film deserved, Affleck in particular does a good job channeling a similar scumbag husband to the one he portrays in Gone Girl. Meanwhile, de Armas brings a bubbly yet devious demeanor to Melinda. But unfortunately, the script doesn't give either of them enough to do and there's not much either can do to save it. In the end, Deep Water needed either more sultriness coupled with thrills or just complete and total absurd insanity throughout to be truly memorable. Instead, its clumsy mix of those ingredients makes for something that will be forgotten soon.

RATING: 3/10