Vic (Ben Affleck) and Melinda (Ana de Armas) are unhappily married, still together to keep up a thin façade for their daughter Trixie (Grace Jenkins).  The older Vic is mostly passive as his wife flaunts her infidelity at every opportunity, but when her litany of lovers begin to disappear one by one, suspicion begins to grow across the small town maybe that Vic is not as helpless as he seems. 

Directed by Adrian Lyne for Twentieth Century Studios and released on Hulu, Deep Water was written by Zach Helm and Sam Levinson based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel of the same name.  The 115-minute erotic thriller – and to call it such is to be generous – is grossly misaligned and without focus as it clumsily sets up the building blocks of its central mystery all the while squandering the incredible collection of star power on this straight-to-the-small-screen stumble.  It is a script that feels like the product of heavy studio interference as it is underdeveloped and has quite a few jarring plot leaps, but the beauty of streaming is filmmakers have more freedom to expand on their ideas and creep closer to a 145-minute runtime without punishing the audience’s bladders too much as they have the freedom of a pause button.  Perhaps it was more a case of turn in what you have and let the algorithm bury it in the wake of Affleck and de Armas’ off-screen romance crumbling, but whatever decisions that were made in the board room aside, it does not change the fact that the final product is a very weak and unfortunate film given its potential. 

As the leading man, Affleck gives one of his most bland, boring, and lethargic performances which makes the film incredibly hard to tap into as its star does not even seem to want to be there.  It is hard to look at Vic and not compare him to Nick in David Fincher’s Gone Girl (2014) where he finds himself, again, the main suspect in a missing person’s case.  While Nick has much more drive to clear his name, Vic has no real motivation to do anything.  He makes some strange comments here and there, but what little action he does take is so few and far between it does not amount for much, and the lack of buildup between those rare moments makes any action seem strangely out of character for this loaf of a man. 

Opposite Affleck is de Armas who continues her unfortunate run of working in films that greatly underutilize her talents.  Her role as Melinda here, though, does not afford her the same dynamic type of role she has previously been cast in as Melinda on the page is lazily written with the very thin motivation of sleeping with whichever heartthrob catches her eye as she is bored in her marriage with Vic, but refuses to be the one to leave him.  It all seems very physical – almost vapid – as the only thing besides the attention or gifts she seems to receive are some piano lessons from Charlie De Lisle (Jacob Elordi).  As with the whole of Deep Water, it can only be imagined that Melinda is a victim of a studio-insisted evisceration of the script turning her into a confounding presence that does little to justify why she is acting out the way she is and even less to show why Vic would even want to stay with her.  She is a femme fatale through a matter of loosely conceived circumstance, made even worse by Eigil Bryld’s shy camera work.    

Script issues aside, the overall look of the film leaves much to be desired.  For an erotic thriller, to have the best-looking scenes in the film be those of Vic’s snail collection is a huge misstep.  Outside of the shed, everything is lit so plainly meaning there is no visual excitement anywhere.  Even the few moments of intimacy between Vic and Melinda are shot in such a labored fashion that they lack any electricity on screen.  The argument can be made that the lack of a spark is what drives Melinda to be unfaithful, but Bryld’s camera work shows the same stagnancy when she is with other men and the script only allows us to witness their public, physical flirtation. 

Deep Water is a prime example of a failed execution.  The concept lends itself to being a highly engaging thriller, and on paper having some of today’s hottest stars being scandalous should have been a winning enough formula, but the result was one so slow and boring with a camera almost afraid to get intimate with its cast, that it quickly falls flat.  Without delving too deeply into speculation of what it could have been, the film feels like the first act of something greater when Melinda takes on a praying mantis arc, but instead we have Affleck showing less energy than his snails, a truly unfortunate Tracy Letts performance that reduces the veteran to little more than a confused old man, and a nonsensical musical performance by young Jenkins over the end credits.  It wanders along without vision or purpose relying on the strength of its individual elements to lure in an audience, but it has little idea of how to highlight its talent to let them succeed in delivering anything that unlocks excitement in us.