Oh, come on you puritan film critics! Yes, I know Adrian Lyne’s “Deep Water” isn’t high art, but it’s quite the outrageously watchable film. So far, it has a 30% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yikes. Metacritic ended up relegating it to its TV section since it’s premiering on HULU this Friday.
Lyne is the filmmaker most associated with the erotic thriller genre in the ‘80s and ‘90s — “Fatal Attraction,” “9½ Weeks,” “Flashdance,” “Indecent Proposal,” “Lolita” and “Unfaithful” — all featuring erotic sex and dark thrills. However, ever since 2002’s “Unfaithful” he has been M.I.A. What happened? I’m not sure, but 17 years after his last movie, Lyne is back with his most (accidentally?) comedic film.
I was very much looking forward to this adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel, this one starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas. The plot has them as a young married couple playing mind games with each other, and avoiding divorce by allowing each other to take on new lovers, only for very dark surprises to spring up.
I’m telling you, this movie will become some kind of cult classic when all is said and done. It's a very silly movie, but watchable in its blatant ludicrousness. You feel nothing but loathing for de Armas’ character, but she really chews up the scenery here. The problem is the high implausibility factor in the screenplay, especially in the final 10 or so minutes.
Both Affleck and De Armas know they’re in a bad movie and really just go along with it. Nice house, nice Garden district, nice New Orleans atmosphere. It’s basically the same idea as “Unfaithful,” but more pervy, and much less erotic. She openly cheats on him, he knows it and doesn't stop it. It's almost like masochistic commitment on his part and he does do something about this pent-up jealousy.
The film was written by Euphoria’s Sam Levinson and it’s just as over-the-top as that HBO Series.
Mukdeeprom is well known on the arthouse circuit for his work with Apichatpong Weerasethakul (“Memoria”), and he also shot three Guadagnino movies.