It's been 20 years since Adrian Lyne last made a feature film.
The Englishman made his name in the 1980s and 90s as a director of mainstream erotic movies from '9 1/2 Weeks' to 'Fatal Attraction' and 'Indecent Proposal' to 'Unfaithful'.
Like Alan Parker, Hugh Hudson, Ridley and Tony Scott, he cut his teeth directing commercials - with one of his ads even prompting a query from Stanley Kubrick about a filter he used for one particular shot.
A fan of French New Wave cinema, Lyne's big break came in 1980 after making short films, directing Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, Sally Kellerman and Randy Quaid in the well received coming of age drama 'Foxes'.
His next film 'Flashdance' - a dance drama with Jennifer Beals - in 1983 really put him on Hollywood's radar, grossing over $200 million worldwide and becoming the third most popular movie that year.
A lot has happened in the movie industry since his thriller 'Unfaithful' with an Oscar nominated Diane Lane, Richard Gere, Oliver Martinez and Dominic Chianese delivered a handsome profit for 20th Century Fox.
Studios have more or less stopped making the kind of movies that were Lyne's stock-in-trade, with superhero adventures dominating the landscape.
Streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Apple TV+, Disney+ and Amazon Prime have emerged and spent loads of money plugging that gap.
The distribution model for movies has radically changed, with awards contenders and what would previously have been considered mainstream studio fare getting very narrow windows for cinema releases and some even going straight to streaming.
In the 20 years since he made 'Unfaithful,' Lyne tried and failed to get Canadian author A.S.A Harrison's acclaimed psychological thriller novel 'The Silent Wife' adapted for the big screen with Nicole Kidman.
He also attempted to make a thriller called 'Silence' which would have reunited him with his 'Fatal Attraction' lead Michael Douglas alongside Halle Berry.
Lyne has finally returned with an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's 1957 novel 'Deep Water' - a book that 'Gone Girl' author Gillian Flynn has cited as a huge influence.
That connection with Flynn is cemented in this movie with the casting of Ben Affleck.
Like his character Nick Dunne in David Fincher's adaptation of Flynns 'Gone Girl,' Affleck's character Vic Van Allen is in a warped marriage.
However unlike Nick, Vic appears to be a co-conspirator with his wife, Ana de Armas' Melinda in the deadly mind games that both engage in.
In Lyne's movie, which has gone straight to streaming on Hulu in the US and Amazon Prime everywhere else,Vic and Melinda are engaged in a seemingly loveless marriage that is the talk of the Louisiana town where they live.
At parties and around the town, Melinda seems to openly flaunt a succession of extra marital relationships.
And to the consternation of his friends, Vic, who has made his fortune as a drone inventor, just seems to shrug his shoulders at his wife's behaviour and go about his business
While she takes lovers late at night and goes partying, he does the school runs and seems to be more committed to their young daughter Grace Jenkins' Trixie.
Melinda and Vic's marriage, though, is a lot more complex than it appears.
However lurking in the background is gossip about the disappearance of one of Melinda's lovers, Martin McRae.
When Melinda parades her latest lover, Brendan C Miller's Joel Dash at a party, introducing him to her husband and other guests, Vic fuels the rumours about her missing lover by menacingly telling the musician that he murdered Martin.
Freaked out by what Vic has told him, Joel leaves in a hurry and when Melinda finds out, she is furious with her husband who insists it was just a joke.
Unfortunately for the Van Allen's, the "joke" has legs in the wider community and attracts the curiosity of Tracy Letts' aspiring novelist Don Wilson.
Melinda takes a new lover, a talented pianist, Jacob Elordi's Charlie De Lisle which Vic only discovers by chance after noticing a $3,000 payment to him.
When confronted about the payment, Melinda insists they are for piano lessons.
However the fact that she has kept the payments secret in a marriage where she has been very open about her extramarital relationships really seems to get under Vic's skin.
This is especially true when Charlie turns up at another party among their social circle and her husband witnesses him making love to Melinda in a swimming pool.
Even though the police have discovered Martin McRae's body with wounds that suggest he was the victim of a shooting, Vic's remarks come back to haunt him when Charlie is found dead floating in the swimming pool.
Melinda initially believes Vic is responsible and roars this accusation at him after attempts to give Charlie CPR flounder.
Don's suspicions are also reawakened and he is keen to get to the bottom of the mystery with Melinda, believing it could be great material for his book.
Is Vic really behind the deaths of Melinda's lovers?
And can their strange marital arrangement survive?
There's something deliciously retro about Lyne's thriller which definitely reignites memories of the titillating thrillers of the 1980s and 90s like 'Fatal Attraction,' 'Basic Instinct' and 'Sea of Love'.
The mainstream erotic thriller was something Lyne built his Hollywood reputation on and, working from Sam Levinson and Zach Helm's screenplay of Highsmith's tale, he is more than comfortable with its tropes.
For the most part, he delivers a solid psychological thriller about a toxic marriage and elicits note perfect performances from his leads.
Affleck is particularly good - keeping the audience guessing if Vic is a slack jawed stoic or weirdly getting off on his wife's promiscuity.
De Armas, who impressed in 'Knives Out' and as a butt kicking agent in Havana in 'No Time To Die,' also confirms why her star power is rising.
She delivers a confident performance that has you questioning Melinda's femme fatale credentials.
As a twisted onscreen couple, Affleck and De Armas gel effectively and with the help of Lyne and his screenwriters Levinson and Helm, they have fun planting seeds of doubt about their characters.
Lyne gets the most too out of his Danish cinematographer Eigil Bryld who handsomely captures the surface gloss of the Louisiana town that the Van Allens reside in and its sinister undercurrents.
However having slowly cranked up the heat and kept the pot simmering, we get a sloppier third act that doesn't quite feel as satisfying as it should, even when it gets back on track at the end.
As more and more detail emerges about Melinda and Vic's motives and the mystery is stripped away, the wow factor also dissolves.
Ultimately, like a lot of films in Lyne's career, 'Deep Water' feels like a momentary diversion and not quite the full sum of all its parts.
Of the supporting cast, Tracy Letts is good value as a pompous and untalented writer.
While Miller and Elordi are a bland pair of lovers for Melinda, Finn Whitrock is a bit more intriguing when he pops up as Tony Cameron, an old college boyfriend who she reconnects with.
Lil Rey Howery, Dash Mihok, Jade Fernandez, Devyn Tyler, Michael Braun and Rachel Blanchard dutifully trot out performances as members of the Van Allens' social circle.
However there really isn't much substance in their roles for them to play with, apart from clutching wine glasses.
Kristen Connolly looks like she might do something interesting with the role of Don's wife Kelly but the potential to develop the character is never really realised.
Grace Jenkins turns in a decent performance, though, as the couple's smart young daughter Trixie.
'Deep Water' is entertaining fare, even if it isn't outstanding.
It's the kind of film you might watch at home when the kids have gone to bed.
As Highsmith adaptations go, it is pretty much middle of the league.
It doesn't quite challenge the likes of 'American Friend' or The Talented Mr Ripley'.
However it does just enough to keep you engaged.
('Deep Water' was released on Hulu in the US and Amazon Prime around the world on March 18, 2022)
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