Monday, March 21, 2022

Deep Water (R) (HULU) - 2 Stars - March 18, 2022


In Deep Water, Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas play Vic and Melinda Van Allen, partners in a deeply unhappy marriage which includes a young daughter.  Their unspoken bond allows her to take a number of lovers as long as she stays in the marriage.  Tension builds as an alarming number of her lovers disappear.  Affleck tells her newest boyfriend that he killed the former boyfriend.  Others drop, drowning in a pool or showing up at the bottom of a creek.  A neighbor, played by Tracy Letts, suspects Ben but can't prove anything.  Ana de Armas plays the straying wife to the hilt.  Affleck lumbers through the story like Frankenstein's monster. Deep Water's plot seeps out slowly and comes to a not especially satisfying end.    The plot comes from a 1957 story by Patricia Highsmith, author of many of Hitchcock's favorite tales including Strangers on a Train.  The result is watchable but not great.