So, here I was, thinking I would hit the local multiplex again to see the new horror movie X. Good Rotten Tomatoes score, sounded like something I might like, and I suspect I would have liked it just fine. But Hulu also dropped Deep Water this weekend. Ben Affleck has been more and more of a reliable actor of late, even turning in good performances in otherwise forgettable movies. Ana de Armas has been charming in every single thing I have seen her in. The premise sounded good. OK, the fact the movie went straight to streaming, particularly Hulu, isn’t a good sign, but there can be exceptions to that potential red flag. What can go wrong?
I really should have gone to see X.
Married couple Vic (Afflect) and Melinda Van Allen (de Armas) have what should be a picture-perfect life. They have an adorable young daughter, Vic earned enough money working on drones to effectively retire young, and they have more than enough money to do whatever they want. Small problem: they’re both miserable. The only thing holding the marriage together is an agreement between the two whereby Melinda can take lovers. However, Vic doesn’t seem quite so comfortable about such things and tells the latest of those men that he murdered a previous one. Sure, Vic claims it was a joke, but he sure didn’t sound like he was joking. A few suspicious deaths later, and it looks like Vic might be killing these men. He has alibis, but there is this new member to the community, a mystery writer (Tracy Letts) who has his suspicions. Will the truth come out?
By the by, I know it’s standard for leading men to be set with younger women, but it sure stood out a bit to me here. In the case of Affleck, I can see it: it is not uncommon to depict a well-off man with a younger woman. It’s a shorthand way of showing off the character’s financial success in a work of fiction in many ways. So sure, put the late fortysomething Afflect opposite the young thirtysomething de Armas. But why is Tracy Letts’s character likewise married to a woman that looks noticeably younger than he does?
OK, if that’s my second paragraph after the photo, you gotta know this movie didn’t do a lot for me. Affleck seemed to be just there, and the movie seemed to basically figure since de Armas is a very attractive woman, that that would be enough for her character. I mean, there’s a brief scene where Affleck picks a guy up off the street. He’s in the car, the other man is on the street. What catches my eye? An orange cat sitting in a window behind the guy on the street. I was that uninvested in this movie. It was dull for most of its runtime.
You know, until it got to the big climax at the end in the last twenty minutes when it went from dull to stupid. What kind of movie is this? Director Adrian Lyne does have a history with erotic thrillers, but the only other movie of his I’ve seen was the awful 9 1/2 Weeks. The problem with that movie was it seemed mostly dumb. This one, based off a novel by a popular mystery writer, could have been better, but with Affleck’s performance bordering on the bored for most of the movie and de Armas being mostly annoyed at everyone throughout the movie, there really didn’t seem to be anyone to root for. So, instead, I got the occasional shot of a cute dog reacting to crazy stuff and a scene playing during the closing credits that could not be more tonally different from what came before it if they tried. Just don’t bother with this one.
Grade: F
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