A throwback to overheated nonsense
Hulu
There are touches throughout “Deep Water,” primarily via its script written by Zach Helm and Sam Levinson, that hint at a desire to be a full-on throwback to the overheated nonsense that lined erotic thrillers of the 1980s and 1990s. And frankly, some of what makes “Deep Water” enjoyable is the fact that those touches and hints exist at all. The coy manner with which Vic teases Melinda’s various squeezes, his threats as playful as they are scary; the way that nighttime Big Easy parties turn into desperate attempts to save a person’s life all while a torrential downpour drops upon them; and the idea that a relative newcomer to the town, portrayed by Tracy Letts, is scoffed at by his younger wife (Kristen Connolly) for daring to take Vic’s murderous threats as real all feel like dashes of the same sweaty intensity that you can find in everything from “Basic Instinct” to “Wild Things.”
It’s difficult not to allow real-life relationships to sneak in at the periphery here, as Affleck and de Armas were tabloid fodder during the filming of “Deep Water” as they connected in a romance that has since concluded. While they do have chemistry — as Affleck proves when he shows that Vic can be a doting father (if in a warped way), he can have charisma with just about anyone — so much of the story being driven from Vic’s point of view means that we only ever get to see Melinda through his eyes, and sometimes at such a remove that de Armas’ naturally vivacious charm feels muted and distant. It’s honestly a shame that she’s not able to be a true equal to Affleck, at least in terms of dramatic weight.
That said, “Deep Water” has its pleasures, some of which are of the inexplicably daffy variety, as when two characters end up racing each other out of a forest and one of them tries to drive while texting to disastrous effect. And when you compare “Deep Water” to … well, just about every other movie available right now, either in theaters or streaming, it really does feel like a singular sensation. (Even in the era of Netflix barraging you with so-called “original” films one after the other, there aren’t a ton of movies in this subgenre of adult drama.) The fact that this movie exists — and the fact that the Walt Disney Company stuck with it even via Hulu — is almost more laudatory than the film itself. The desire it has to hearken back to the era of Adrian Lyne’s earlier triumphs (at least at the box office) is admirable, yet “Deep Water” has pleasures that stick to the surface. /Film Rating: 6 out of 10
Deep Water Review: A Return To Thrilling, Trashy Erotica
Hulu
By Josh Spiegel/March 16, 2022 12:00 pm EST
Whatever else is true of “Deep Water,” it’s often as removed from its audience as Vic is from his wife. Affleck is well-cast here, riffing a bit on his lead role in David Fincher’s “Gone Girl” as someone who is surface-level charming but also seems to hold a vast reserve of fury that is barely left contained. It’s not hard to wonder why other people in town, even some of Vic’s friends (played by Dash Mihok and Lil Rel Howery), act like Vic’s initial “joke” sounds an awful lot like the real thing. But “Deep Water” is fully locked into Vic’s own sociopathic and detached mindset — he’s weirdly compelling, but it also means that while we understand why he would care so much for Melinda (and why so many other men all but fall over themselves for a moment with her), it’s hard to see why Melinda ever cared for him.
A throwback to overheated nonsense
There are touches throughout “Deep Water,” primarily via its script written by Zach Helm and Sam Levinson, that hint at a desire to be a full-on throwback to the overheated nonsense that lined erotic thrillers of the 1980s and 1990s. And frankly, some of what makes “Deep Water” enjoyable is the fact that those touches and hints exist at all. The coy manner with which Vic teases Melinda’s various squeezes, his threats as playful as they are scary; the way that nighttime Big Easy parties turn into desperate attempts to save a person’s life all while a torrential downpour drops upon them; and the idea that a relative newcomer to the town, portrayed by Tracy Letts, is scoffed at by his younger wife (Kristen Connolly) for daring to take Vic’s murderous threats as real all feel like dashes of the same sweaty intensity that you can find in everything from “Basic Instinct” to “Wild Things.”
It’s difficult not to allow real-life relationships to sneak in at the periphery here, as Affleck and de Armas were tabloid fodder during the filming of “Deep Water” as they connected in a romance that has since concluded. While they do have chemistry — as Affleck proves when he shows that Vic can be a doting father (if in a warped way), he can have charisma with just about anyone — so much of the story being driven from Vic’s point of view means that we only ever get to see Melinda through his eyes, and sometimes at such a remove that de Armas’ naturally vivacious charm feels muted and distant. It’s honestly a shame that she’s not able to be a true equal to Affleck, at least in terms of dramatic weight.
That said, “Deep Water” has its pleasures, some of which are of the inexplicably daffy variety, as when two characters end up racing each other out of a forest and one of them tries to drive while texting to disastrous effect. And when you compare “Deep Water” to … well, just about every other movie available right now, either in theaters or streaming, it really does feel like a singular sensation. (Even in the era of Netflix barraging you with so-called “original” films one after the other, there aren’t a ton of movies in this subgenre of adult drama.) The fact that this movie exists — and the fact that the Walt Disney Company stuck with it even via Hulu — is almost more laudatory than the film itself. The desire it has to hearken back to the era of Adrian Lyne’s earlier triumphs (at least at the box office) is admirable, yet “Deep Water” has pleasures that stick to the surface. /Film Rating: 6 out of 10
It’s difficult not to allow real-life relationships to sneak in at the periphery here, as Affleck and de Armas were tabloid fodder during the filming of “Deep Water” as they connected in a romance that has since concluded. While they do have chemistry — as Affleck proves when he shows that Vic can be a doting father (if in a warped way), he can have charisma with just about anyone — so much of the story being driven from Vic’s point of view means that we only ever get to see Melinda through his eyes, and sometimes at such a remove that de Armas’ naturally vivacious charm feels muted and distant. It’s honestly a shame that she’s not able to be a true equal to Affleck, at least in terms of dramatic weight.
That said, “Deep Water” has its pleasures, some of which are of the inexplicably daffy variety, as when two characters end up racing each other out of a forest and one of them tries to drive while texting to disastrous effect. And when you compare “Deep Water” to … well, just about every other movie available right now, either in theaters or streaming, it really does feel like a singular sensation. (Even in the era of Netflix barraging you with so-called “original” films one after the other, there aren’t a ton of movies in this subgenre of adult drama.) The fact that this movie exists — and the fact that the Walt Disney Company stuck with it even via Hulu — is almost more laudatory than the film itself. The desire it has to hearken back to the era of Adrian Lyne’s earlier triumphs (at least at the box office) is admirable, yet “Deep Water” has pleasures that stick to the surface.
/Film Rating: 6 out of 10
