Whatever happened to the steamy Hollywood erotic thriller? This adult genre used to dominate theaters, especially during the 1980s and 90s (Basic Instinct was the highest grossing movie of 1992). With the rise of the Internet and a plethora of personal options, many people don’t feel like they need to go to the movies in order to feel some heat. I’m sure more international movies are picking up this American slack, but there has been a real dearth of the erotic thriller (I’ll theorize why later) and this corresponds with the absence of director Adrian Lyne, one of the kings of the erotic drama. Lyne is responsible for Fatal Attraction, Nine and a Half Weeks, Indecent Proposal, Flashdance, and 2002’s Unfaithful, which happened to be the director’s last movie. Yes, it’s been twenty whole years since Lyne made another movie, and his newest is mining the territory of old, but Deep Water sure does feel dated and not worth the extended wait.

Melinda (Ana de Armas) and Vic (Ben Affleck) have a special understanding with their marriage. She sleeps with other men while he allows it and feels jealous about it. Vic jokes about killing one of his wife’s former lovers, and when the man winds up dead, he becomes the police’s first suspect.

I have a theory why these movies have become less and less over the ensuing years, and it mainly comes down to the fact that it’s hard to do well. Erotic thrillers are easy to fall into camp, or being overwrought, and they skirt the line between exploitation and enjoyably trashy. It’s meant to be tantalizing but that usually just amounts to repurposing the same familiar male gaze compositions. There gets to be a same-y feel to many of them, enough that there was an erotic thriller spoof in the 1990s, the decade where just about every genre got its spoof movie. It feels like the same ogling of feminine beauty we’ve been getting for decades, the same heavy breathing, the same blue-tinted lighting, the same lip biting, the same arched backs, etc. It’s also a delicate line between arty eroticism and smut (see: Fifty Shades franchise), and that can also be very personally subjective. 

Beyond that, I think this subgenre has also suffered in the light of the recent MeToo movement, wherein Hollywood has, reportedly, taken a closer look at its depiction of women. That doesn’t mean things are magically better today, but it does speak to the general culture becoming more conscious of sexual harassment and problematic portrayals, and the erotic thriller genre is built upon the bedrock of dangerous, sexy, experimental, loose women as problematic. I’m not saying these movies can’t be enjoyed on some level, but I think most audiences find them more sleazy than steamy, and I think the heavy male gaze and gratuitous nature of a majority of the movies, as well as the substandard scripting, lead to that dismal conclusion. 

With all that being said, Deep Water mostly flounders because it’s just so contrived and boring. This is one of those movies where characters continually make dumb or aggravating decisions because the plot requires them to. I routinely said, “Why is [Character X] doing [stupid thing]?” and there was never a really supportive answer. The very premise of the movie is flawed. Vic and Melinda have an open marriage and apparently the whole town knows this, but this open relationship is built upon placating Melinda. She doesn’t want to have any intimacy with her husband and seeks out the company of other men. Vic is less an understanding party and more a jealous husband, proving this decision to be one-sided. Vic isn’t helping his wife find her next lover, he’s stewing in the corner and glowering at the newest man. As a starting point for a relationship drama, this is fine, but the screenplay has to offer a valid reason why this character would agree to these terms. What is keeping this marriage alive while he suffers in stern silence? The answer is even less. Vic agrees to let his wife sleep with other men so they won’t get divorced. That’s it. Is this the nineteenth century? Would being divorced be so scandalous? This is preposterous reasoning for prolonging this character’s obvious discomfort and turmoil. 

The other question, never answered, is why Vic would want to keep Melinda. Of course de Armas (No Time to Die) is an attractive woman, and everyone in this movie’s comically absurd small universe seems to be infatuated with her, but for what reason? At no point in the film’s 110 minutes does Melinda come across as charming, or intriguing, or even remotely interesting. That’s because she’s not a real character here but a trophy, a prize for men to covet. She’s also clearly understanding what torment she is causing her husband or she is the most oblivious person on the planet, which could also be true because the characterization on display isn’t exactly human. She seems to enjoy teasing her husband and cutting off their attempts at physical intimacy, which then leads to sad bike rides or angry bike rides. Look, there is a comical amount of bicycle usage in this movie, including one car chase that had me laughing out loud. Regardless, Melinda is portrayed as a lousy human being but, even more criminal, she is a boring character. In short, it’s a mystery why Affleck’s glum character would continue his marriage to this awful person.

Another frustrating choice is its lopsided structure. The first half is rather boring and repetitive, as we watch man after man come into the picture only to be scared off by Vic, who gloats that he killed one of Melinda’s last lovers. First off, this character has actually gone missing, so why would any character, no matter how self-destructive they can be, publicly joke about this on multiple occasions, enough so that every member of this gossipy community can recollect? It’s revealed later that this character is indeed found dead, and Vic becomes an immediate suspect because of course he would be, even without his “bad joke.” The problem is that the movie spends far too long playing this silly game of whether or not Vic is the killer when only two possible outcomes can emerge. Either he is the killer and we’ve been wasting time leading to an obvious conclusion, or he is not the killer and not enough work has been put in to present an alternate scenario that could be credible. The movie makes a definite choice in that matter (I’ll detail in a spoiler paragraph below) and I couldn’t help thinking it was the wrong choice. The question over Vic’s culpability is not enough to sustain this movie. 

And now let’s delve into spoilers, so if you wish to remain pure and virtuous, well you should skip this movie entirely, but you can also skip to the next paragraph. The question over whether Vic is guilty can be a bit confusing because there are flashes throughout the first half that you cannot determine whether they are Vic imagining killing these suitors or Vic remembering killing these suitors. The police force of this town must be the worst because Vic is a terrible murderer. Yes, dear reader, he really is killing all of his wife’s lovers, which would seem to obviously implicate him as far as what these men all have in common. He’s also bad at leaving behind evidence and hiding corpses in shallow bodies of water (the title is its own joke). If this was the eventual reveal, the movie spends far too much time getting here without any significant doubt beforehand. There are no alternate suspects presented. If it was going to be Vic the entire time, this is a turn that’s best to be revealed as the Act One break, not late in Act Three. This doesn’t work as a final reveal but more as an early development, and then we would follow the character as he bumbles his way through covering up his crimes, only getting into bigger and bigger trouble. Then it becomes more of a farce, but it at least has a more pleasing plot structure of watching a character try and get out of their own danger rather than the audience being ignorant. 

So is there a real reason to dive into Deep Water? Not really, even if you’re a fan of the woe begotten genre of erotic thrillers. It exists in one of those hilariously bourgeoisie universes where everyone is having these unrealistic house parties where dopey rich people canoodle all the time, white win in hand, and snipe at one another like it’s catty Regency England. What are Lil’ Rel and Tracy Letts doing here? The characters are just flat-out dull and frustrating to watch, and not even in a somewhat fun sexual tension kind of way. Affleck and de Armas carried on a relationship after this movie but you’d be hard-pressed to wonder why over the course of 110 minutes of exasperated edging. The structure of this movie is all wrong, which makes it feel so boring, and contrived, and repetitive, and if you’re looking for something smoldering or sexy, well it’s the same old same old, and even that is in shocking short supply. Deep Water works best as a movie to yell at in confusion. It’s also further proof about why the erotic thriller is mostly an artifact of the past and why it should likely remain so. There is nothing deep about this movie. 

Nate’s Grade: C-