The story behind the release of Deep Water – which arrives on Amazon Prime Video in the UK this weekend – has been a long and relatively complicated one.
Originally set for release back in November 2020, the film became a victim of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the Disney takeover of 20th Century Fox, and was left in limbo long enough for its two main stars (Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas) to engage in a brief but high-profile real-life relationship, which famously ended with a life-sized cardboard cutout being thrown in the trash.
After being scrapped by Disney entirely, the film was eventually picked up by US streaming platform Hulu and now – finally – it arrives, albeit with very little hype or fanfare in spite of its A-list cast.
And the fact that the film is getting such short shrift is a real shame. Not only is it the first feature in two decades from celebrated director Adrian Lyne – he of Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal fame – but it’s also an attempt to revive the genre he helped popularise in the ’80s and ’90s, the erotic thriller.
In the ’90s especially, movies in this mode were an extremely prominent part of the cinema landscape, but nowadays they’ve all but disappeared from the mainstream, even if a few examples – such as last year’s The Voyeurs starring Euphoria’s Sydney Sweeney – remain on the fringes.
Explanations as to why the genre has lain in dormancy for so long are varied and plentiful, but in my view, any attempt to help bring it back should be welcomed with open arms.
By and large, the reviews for Deep Water have been fairly poor – and indeed some critics have given it a real kicking. It’s not hard to see why it might come in for some flak – the film is curiously paced and contains its fair share of poor dialogue, for starters, while it never really feels like it takes place in a recognisable version of the real world.
But I must confess that I found it to be a total hoot, pretty much from beginning to end. Sure, it’s not as accomplished a film as the aforementioned Fatal Attraction – a bonafide classic – but it contains a perfect blend of preposterous plotting and moments of delightful high camp which make it near-impossible not to be won over by, a knowingly trashy throwback full of moral uncertainty and pitch-black comedy.
At the centre of it are Affleck and de Armas, without whom the whole endeavour wouldn’t work nearly so well. This is probably the closest we’ve come to seeing Affleck return to the tenor of his terrific performance as Nick Dunne in Gone Girl.
His character Vic Van Allen – who we are told relatively early on is responsible for inventing a microchip used in drone warfare – is a curious, seemingly amoral beast, and Affleck plays him with a certain detachment that only sporadically betrays his true feelings.
De Armas, on the other hand, shows more of the charisma that made her brief appearance in No Time to Die so memorable in the role of Van Allen’s free-spirited wife Melinda, as she teases and torments her husband by rubbing her many extra-marital affairs directly in his face and takes any opportunity she can to remind him how boring she finds him.
Most compelling of all is the nature of the relationship between this unusual couple, as we try to get a handle on the dynamic at play, especially after Vic begins boasting about what he did to one of Melinda’s many conquests.
It’s a truly unusual screen relationship, and as the film goes on questions arise as to why on earth they would stay together, questions which seem to be answered in a terrifically enjoyable if rather ludicrous climax.
The film is no doubt helped by the fact that it is derived from a novel of the same name by the great suspense writer Patricia Highsmith (although the ending is changed), and while it doesn’t quite live up to the best adaptations of her work – from Strangers on a Train to The Talented Mr Ripley – it’s nonetheless an interesting addition to the canon, full of all the duplicity and twists you’d expect from her.
But mainly, Deep Water is just a refreshing reminder of the kind of mid-budget, made-for-adults film that audiences aren’t treated to nearly as often as they once were. And even if it might not technically be the finest ever example of the erotic thriller, it’s a great deal of fun just to get a taste of the genre again – even if it is simply dumped on a streaming service with no fanfare.
Deep Water is out now on Amazon Prime Video in the UK.
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