Deep Water movie review: Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas shine in Adrian Lyne’s comeback thriller about toxic marriage | Hollywood

An Adrian Lyne adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith crime novel, starring ex-lovers Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas feels like a successful mixture from the beginning. Lyne is best-known for his erotic movies to which he brings a level of solemnity and psychological perception normally not discovered within the style. That is his first movie in 20 years. (Additionally learn: Gone Woman evaluation: Darkish and disturbing, that is one thriller you should not miss)

Highsmith, the queen of the psychological thriller novel, makes her writing crackle together with her deep understanding of the sociopathic thoughts and her knack for spinning a twisty yarn.

Ana de Armas is at present one among our most beautiful film stars, attributable to seem later this yr as Marilyn Monroe within the Andrew Dominik-directed biopic Blonde. Forty-nine-year-old Ben Affleck has aged like superb wine, with back-to-back stellar performances in The Manner Again, The Final Duel and Tender Bar, nonetheless wanting impressively buff ever since he gained muscle mass for the Batman films.

As a fan of Lyne and Highsmith and having preferred what Affleck and Armas dropped at the desk, I used to be fairly stoked for Deep Water. The 115-minute thriller, which begins streaming on Amazon Prime Video from March 18, strikes at a breakneck velocity, has excellent performances, and at all times stored me guessing the place it was heading as a result of Lyne and his writers Zach Helm and Sam Levinson do make some vital modifications to the supply materials, which make Deep Water share some beats with Affleck’s earlier marriage-gone-wrong film Gone Woman (2014), however I don’t thoughts that.

Affleck and Armas play the prosperous Van Allens. Victor (Affleck) and Melinda (Armas) are caught in a seemingly loveless marriage, or maybe, there’s love however because it doesn’t rise to the floor as simply because it did earlier than, Victor and Melinda torture one another psychologically to get an increase out of each other.

Melinda maintains and flaunts a gentle stream of lovers, all good-looking a bit dumb, not like Victor, who enjoys a repute for being a mature, refined and formidable man of their local people by showing to tolerate his spouse’s indiscretions. Naturally, the neighbours sympathise with Victor greater than Melinda. Whereas she spends her days and evenings within the firm of her many younger lovers, the a lot older Victor spends his time furiously biking, sustaining a farm of snails, and doting over their little daughter Trixie (Grace Jenkins), who is far nearer to her dad than her mother.

However Victor has a darkish aspect to him. It seems that Victor enjoys tormenting Melinda by withholding affection and showing unaffected by her little affairs. Melinda, then again, is unhappy, that her husband has misplaced all ardour for her, and so she seeks romance from a youthful man who makes her take pleasure in herself. Melinda thinks that regardless of her sexiness, she isn’t good sufficient for her mental husband. Victor wields this angst as a weapon in opposition to her.

Issues slowly unravel as soon as Melinda’s lovers begin to die. Is Victor killing them? The viewers is aware of the reply however Melinda’s accusations about her murderous husband seem hysterical to the group. The one one who believes Melinda is their neighbour Don (Tracy Letts), a pulp fiction author, who’s greater than keen to find a serial killer in his yard.

One of many main modifications from the supply materials that I preferred was that Lyne, Helm and Levinson make Victor and Melinda extra likable than they’re within the e book. Each come off as completely reprehensible in Highsmith’s novel; Victor because the quiet, scheming husband, Melinda as a inconsiderate waste of a girl. Moreover, Victor is sexually mismatched with Melinda within the e book.

Within the film, Victor and Melinda share an apparent affection for one another, which is revealed in small moments early within the movie and in a few scenes that counsel that Victor and Melinda are the most effective match for one another, very like the couple from hell in Gone Woman.

Lyne and his writers replace the fabric with some beauty touches. Victor is not a belief fund child with a distinct segment publishing home. He now designs army drones, which, mixed with Affleck’s bodily body, makes him extra imposing and intimidating than he’s within the novel. Lyne and his writers additionally throw away the novel’s moralistic ending and go for a, I might say, extra romantic and maybe extra plausible conclusion to this relatively bewildering story.

Why Disney selected to drag Deep Water out of their theatrical launch schedule and drop it on a web-based platform is a thriller, given the star energy of the film and its pulpy thrills that might appeal to the Gone Woman crowd. Deep Water is a leaner movie and doesn’t actually dig into the couple’s psychological make-up as deeply as we noticed it accomplished in Gone Woman. This, maybe, fits Deep Water, or it could grow to be extra of the identical. Why Victor is how he’s is an effective query. He’s a cypher, as is Melinda. Affleck and Armas are completely excellent in these roles, and their cold and warm chemistry is the star of this nasty little thriller from the grasp Adrian Lyne.