On any given week 30 years in the past, amongst all the various comedies and motion movies at your native multiplex, you have been assured to seek out not less than one erotic thriller. Within the days earlier than Hollywood went all in on endlessly renewable IP, one among American films’ most bankable ideas was tossing two extraordinarily enticing folks collectively in a narrative with a bunch of violence and a little bit R-rated nudity. In the present day, mainstream American films are about as sexless as they’ve ever been because the days of the Hays Code. When these kinds of movies are made in any respect, they bypass theaters and go straight to streaming.

That’s what’s occurred with Deep Water even if its two very enticing stars, Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas, spent a lot of 2021 in a high-profile relationship, and the movie was directed by Adrian Lyne, the person who made a number of of probably the most profitable erotic thrillers together with Deadly Attraction and 9 1/2 Weeks. Even with these built-in publicity hooks, Deep Water nonetheless sat on a shelf for over a yr and a half and is now debuting on Hulu. The outcomes made me nostalgic for a time when films about adults in frank conditions felt much less like a novelty, even when Deep Water itself is just not on par with Lyne’s most well-known movies.

Possibly the fabric’s a little bit too elegant? Deep Water is predicated on a novel by Patricia Highsmith a few troubled married couple. Within the movie, they’re Vic (Affleck) and Melinda (de Armas), who stay in New Orleans with their younger daughter. Because the movie begins, Vic and Melinda are actually solely “collectively” within the authorized sense; they share the identical home, however not the identical bed room, and after they attend events with their well-to-do mates, she tends to discover a younger man to flirt with — or do much more than flirt — whereas he mopes about from the fringes, leering at his spouse’s drunken exploits along with her newest beau.

Snippets of dialogue make it clear that this conduct has been happening for a while. It additionally reveals that one among Melinda’s “mates” went lacking not too lengthy earlier than the occasions of Deep Water, and that Vic likes to joke that he killed him. Then the lacking man’s lifeless physique exhibits up, and Vic’s quips about bludgeoning somebody to dying with a hammer seem to be much less of a laughing matter. Nonetheless, none of his threats or intimidation appear to do something to cease Melinda from persevering with to carouse with a string of good-looking males.

As Deep Water unfolds, and as Lyne reveals extra of Vic and Melinda’s relationship, the much less it looks like a easy case of a wedding that’s grown chilly. There are hints that Melinda’s dishonest is a part of a recreation she performs with Vic, and that possibly he even will get off on it. Definitely, Affleck and de Armas have sufficient intercourse scenes in Deep Water to fulfill viewers who’re interested in their onscreen connection following all their weirdly endearing paparazzi pictures from the early days of the pandemic. And so they actually have chemistry collectively. It could be unconventional and barely disturbing chemistry, nevertheless it’s there.

Nevertheless it’s additionally one of many solely issues Deep Water actually explores in any depth. Lyne exhibits us increasingly more of Vic and Melinda’s connection, however neither character actually modifications over the course of this sordid story of jealousy and lust. At the same time as Affleck and de Armas pepper Deep Water with intimate moments, it in any other case stays a reasonably repetitive cycle of Melinda dishonest, Vic seething, a confrontation, after which the whole lot beginning over once more. Vic made a lot cash promoting pc chips to the navy that he retired younger; he doesn’t have something to do besides hold tabs on his spouse’s scandalous two-timing and maintain his assortment of snails — sure, stay snails — that are principally current in order that Affleck can use them as a helpful metaphor about monogamy or mankind’s animalistic nature.

Vic is a strong position for Affleck. He’s already confirmed in Gone Woman that he’s good at taking part in emotionally opaque and probably violent husbands, and Deep Water lets him flex lots of the identical muscle groups once more. De Armas could be the single most lovely lady working in Hollywood films proper now, however the a part of Melinda does her much less favors. Her character appears so oblivious to the warning indicators round her, and so uninvested in her marriage. Later scenes do give us a little bit perception into Melinda’s ambiguous motivations however not sufficient; you retain ready for some form of reckoning that may make it clear precisely what’s at stake between this husband and spouse. Nevertheless it by no means actually occurs.

Dangerous puns however, there’s something refreshing about Deep Water. If it had come out in 1992, there would have been so many different, higher films prefer it, that it could have seemed actually poor. In 2022, movies of this ilk are so uncommon, that I can nearly forgive the Deep Water’s faults only for reminding me that these kinds of tales can be informed onscreen. Virtually.

Further Ideas:

-Tracy Letts has a small however very amusing position as an writer who’s the one individual in Vic’s social circle who thinks he could be a assassin. Whereas the remainder of Deep Water is performed very significantly, Letts takes his character in a looser, campier course — one which actually would have suited the outdated Lyne movies, which have been extra emotional rollercoasters than this one. He won’t fairly match with the remainder of Deep Water, however he livens it up anyway.

-Ben Affleck doesn’t have an ideal monitor document on the subject of films he makes together with his real-life romantic companions. True, he starred in Shakespeare in Love with Gwyneth Paltrow, and that was successful and an Oscar winner. However then he made a crummy Daredevil with future spouse Jennifer Garner, and the disastrous one-two punch of Gigli and Jersey Woman with Jennifer Lopez. Deep Water is, not less than, rather a lot higher than these flops.

RATING: 5/10