While looking at IMDB today, I was amazed to discover that the new Hulu movie “Deep Water” is the first movie Adrian Lyne has directed since 2002 with the very good film “Unfaithful” that starred Diane Lane, in her best movie role and Richard Gere. Lyne has directed several movies about marriage and infidelity including “Fatal Attraction” in 1987 and “Indecent Proposal” in 1993. I noticed in most of these movies there are no attempts to mislead or trick the audience, no off the wall twist and turn or and overly surprising ending. This is also true of Deep Water, that stars Ben Affleck and Ana De Armas – which is both a good thing and bad thing about this story.
De Armas plays Melinda who is not only an alcoholic and chain smoker (here we go again), but also a serial cheater – flaunting her many affairs in front of her husband Vic, played by Affleck. Throughout this entire film, several of the men that Melinda is having affairs with are turning up dead, including even a drowning during a nighttime pool party. The mystery is, who killed these men? Is it the obvious choice or someone else? I appreciated the straightforward-no-trickery-moving-making ideas here, but unfortunately this led to a rather unsatisfying ending and at times a too boring 2 hours.
The ratings on Rotten Tomatoes are a way too low 38%, because the acting and directing are very good. My rating is about 70%, with a moderate pass. Once again I wonder what it must be like to be Adrian Lyne, waiting 20 years to direct another movie and get ratings this low. Ben Affleck and Ana De Armas had a relationship during this movie, but unfortunately broke up because they lived too far from each other.