Deep Water, Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas' relationship drama, shimmers in its shallowness

Deep Water, the first film in 20 years by the high-priest of mainstream erotica Adrian Lyne, is not a deep film. It is not meant to be. It is designed as a confectionary aphrodisiac with good-looking actors [in some cases, sinfully eyecandy-ish] moving in posh homes and automobiles, swimming in personal backyard swimming pools, and drowning in champagne as if there is no tomorrow.

One of the toyboy-lookers chooses to drown in the swimming pool rather than the champagne, and that is when the drama really kicks in. Like the champagne that is really bubbly and the characters who are truly unfettered in their surface values, the drama when it kicks in, is  done in that breathless pacey tone which Lyne is known by in his past triumphs, namely 9 ½ Weeks,  Fatal Attraction, and Indecent Proposal.

 Sex, betrayal, and murder go hand-in-hand in Lyne’s heady brew of the bold and the glib. The shadows which cast an ominous spell on the characters are never intimidating. You know that flow of blood is on a tap. Wait until Lyne comes to his finale, he may shock you. On the other hand, he may leave you with a WTF feeling of betrayal.

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Betrayal is what the film protagonist experiences throughout the film. Ben Affleck’s Vic is a loser straight out of a Graham Greene fiction. I swear if this paean to pulp passions [ignited on laugh-moon nights] was not written by the queen of high-class pulp, Patricia Highsmith, I would have sworn Affleck was playing  a Graham Green hero: so in love with his slutty wife that she cheats on him repeatedly right under his nose.

As the chronically cuckolded husband, Affleck is heartbreakingly imperturbable. It is like watching a hero from a Shakespearean tragedy trying hard not to get angry with his over-sexed wife [I would not call her a nymphomaniac because I am polite]. Of course, the seething rage surfaces as one after another, Belinda’s boy-flings start disappearing.

Has her husband Vic ‘dunnit’? The plot does not keep us hanging on too long in suspense. There is a sense of urgency in the seedy proceedings.

Even the lovemaking sequences are hurried; horniness is tolerated but not celebrated the way it was in Lyne’s 9 ½  weeks. A possible reason for this could be Affleck, who is more a tragic bloke than a libidinous lad.

He stands in  good stead as the portrait of a marriage on the rocks, as a whole conservative township of gossipy, nosy neighbours and friends stare, whisper, and giggle.

Ana de Armas’ Melinda is a very tough woman to play. Technically, Melinda does not cheat on her husband Vic:teshe copulates with other men with his full knowledge, if not consent. She is a terrible wife, an awful mother…You want to hate Melinda. But damn, she is so hot! Ana de Armas scorches the screen with her impetuous promiscuousness.

Speaking of Melinda’s maternal misdemeanours, the little girl playing the daughter Tixie [Grace  Jenkins] is absolutely adorable. Stay for the end credits when this six-year-old star sings along with Leo Sayer’s ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.'

Deep Water makes us feel happy not to be super-rich. It seems those who live in glass houses do not throw stones. They use much more lethal weapons.

At the most, Deep Water is a sexily assembled, gorgeous-to-look-at thriller about a man who loves his woman to the death of his self respect. At the least, it is a classy, pseudo-porn drama about a man who gets a masochistic pleasure in watching his wife make out with younger men.

Deep Water is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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