1) I'm knee deep writing in my novel and it's near the end. That takes precedent!
2) There was really no need for me to watch this film. A sentiment I had beforehand and after (ouch!)
Deep Water is truly one of the stranger films I've watched in some time. The weirdness doesn't come from anything particularly outlandish. Or gross. Or stylistically odd behind the camera.
It comes from an insanely awkward and borderline unfathomable screenplay.
The hook to get people to watch is primarily Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas - who had a short fling around the time of filming before Ben and J-Lo somehow rekindled their love. You've also got an old school tag "from the director of Fatal Attraction, etc..." that will only mean something to people who remember all those films (it's certainly no equivalent to whatever you'd put in front of Nolan, Spielberg, etc.).
As it ends up, Deep Water is just a massively boring film that never really provides any sort of direction to where its heading OR where it came from. We're dropped into this relationship with very little context that is never detailed well. There are hints here and there, but by the time the credits rolled I honestly couldn't tell you why this odd couple was...well...a couple. Ana de Armas' Melinda is a borderline unhinged adulterer who isn't shy about it and also thinks she's god's gift to earth. The character is so blatantly s****y that it almost made me hate de Armas which, mind you, is a feat! Luckily I just think back to some No Time to Die Paloma and all is right with the world again. Melinda is one of the first obvious indications that whoever wrote this script and plot doesn't operate in a realistic adult setting - or at least one that I surely hope doesn't exist. Melinda would be a draining friend. All of Vic's (Affleck) guy friends say as much in the film...so why have these people not ostracized her? Why is she still invited to these incredibly-unrealistic-neighborhood parties like she's an angel?
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| I'm just going to pretend this is a still from the Paloma spin-off I've been demanding |
I digress slightly, but only mildly, because Deep Water is probably an okay film (at best) made below average/bad because whoever wrote it feels disconnected from reality OR there's not enough here to truly explain character motivations. Affleck's Vic, for example, is such an odd beta-alpha-male that it made my head turn. He's completely fine with his wife humiliating him at parties by aggressively flirting and kissing other men she invites - again, all in front of the neighbors - and Vic is just fine with it! Part of me wondered when the shoe was going to drop and some sort of he-owes-her-a-life-debt sort of backstory would explain why. That never happens and then, spoiler alert, Affleck kills these men she connects with. At times, he awkwardly confronts her about not doing it all, but again in such a beta male way that I'm almost screaming at my TV as to why these two haven't gotten a divorce. Meanwhile, everyone around them acts as if this is somewhat normal, and none of these characters are fleshed out more than introducing them and identifying their relation with our central couple.
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| "We have some questions about how are characters are written..." |
Luckily, the ending finally seems to give us the "thriller" element after meandering through awkwardness for 80% of its runtime. By the end, I didn't really care either way, but the final 20 minutes is genuinely some good stuff and the combination of some final dramatic tension plus a potential "a ha!" moment (that never came) kept me invested. It was definitely too little too late, however, as I just couldn't fathom how awkward, weird, and odd this entire movie and all of its characters and character interactions are. So much so that it just made up an entire review without hitting on the common stuff like performances, cinematography, music, etc. (they're all okay).
Deep Water, now on Hulu basically confirmed my theory that I wasn't missing much by not focusing on films this weekend, and luckily it looks like the coming weeks have some better offerings.
CONS
- Beating a dead horse here but dear God is this a weird screenplay/script
- Characters that don't feel or act realistically, but yet are encased in a realistic setting
- Useless side characters
- Unfathomable character relationships/interactions
- Film editing/pacing feels like a TV series and not a high quality HBO one...
- Mystery, if you could call it that, never really pans out
- Fells directionless
- Affleck and Armas have some genuine chemistry that barely gets to shine out from their awkward characters
- Moments of very mood-heavy music put to good use
- Final 20 minutes is genuinely thrilling and exciting. It was the best part of the film by a mile
Rath's Review Score | 4/10
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