Revisiting the Erotic Thriller: “Deep Water”
Review by Radjaminah St-Cyr
If there is anyone who can direct a movie about infidelity and unstable marriages, it’s Adrian Lyne. The director of the iconic melodramatic erotic thriller, Fatal Attraction, and the steamy and passionate movies, Unfaithful and Indecent Proposal is known for his intersections of love and sex with murder and deception. Lyne breaks his 20-year hiatus and releases Deep Water, a movie that is absent from his arousing approach.
Deep Water is based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel, which bears the same name. Adrian Lynne had entrusted the screenplay adaption to screenwriters, Sam Levinson and Zach Helm. Neither writer are known for their ability to write sexual tensions and psychological thrillers.
In Deep Water, Vic (Ben Affleck) and Melinda (Ana de Armas) play a married couple set on torturing each other, their friends, and worse, the audience. One thought lingered in my mind while I watched this slow 116-minute movie: sexy people don’t make a good erotic thriller. I am not immune to scenes of Ana de Armas dancing in tight dresses with a glass of wine in her hand or washing the dishes topless, but unfortunately, it does not distract me from the underwhelming tension.
Vic and Melinda, a married couple with a witty six-year-old daughter, have an unspoken agreement that Melinda can take on other lovers. This attempt to fix a loveless marriage does the exact opposite. Instead, the couple uses it to torment one another. Vic is being publicly cuckolded by Melinda and has to be comforted by friends. Despite being relatively attractive and incredibly wealthy. Vic ignores the affections of other women and finds his release in making snide remarks about Melinda in front of her lovers and then murdering them. While Melinda knows their fates deep down, it doesn’t put a stop to her fun. She is deadset on spicing up their boring marriage by driving Vic into a murderous rage.
Melinda almost plays the perfect “erotic thriller” character. Like Matty Walker in Body Heat or Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct, she is sexy, tempting, and devious. However, her desires hit a wall. She is immediately disturbed by the suggestion that her husband could be murdering the men that she sleeps with. Her fear and emotional reactions are rational, but Melinda crumbles at the idea that her behavior could lead to her abnormal and older husband doing something absolutely unhinged.
The wives in Lyne’s movies, like Connie Summer in Unfaithful and Beth Gallagher in Fatal Attraction use family as a motivation for their behaviors, while Melinda notes that their desire to start a family was primarily Vic’s idea. She stands out by being the party and sex-loving housewife she is, but her character suffers from a poorly written film.
Like Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut, Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas were dating at the time the movie was filmed. I imagine having a sensual yet psychological story featuring a real-life couple could portray a raw and intimate portrayal of romance and secrecy but both movies feature very little chemistry between these couples.
This lack of chemistry is arguably useful in Deep Water because it’s clear that stoic Vic is impotent. Impotency is a concept and physical dilemma to explain why a male character is resorting to violence (Bonnie and Clyde & Sex, Lies, and Videotapes). When his daughter asks him about his murder allegations, he tells her that if he was a murderer, he would end up in jail. He is repeatedly emasculated by his wife and clings to his role as a father and a wealthy hobbyist to remind himself that he is, in fact, a man. Impotence is not an excuse for the lack of “sensuality” in this film because Vic’s sexual frustrations could’ve been deeply explored. Vic finds some pleasure in killing his wife’s lovers like jokingly bragging at the beginning of the movie that he murdered his wife’s ex, speaking about it as casual as locker room talk. He continues on with his day after drowning his wife’s pianist, Jacob Elordi or her ex-lover, Finn Wittrock with a satisfied and glazed look on his face. But his murder techniques are similar to his sex game: clumsy. Melinda chooses to stick beside Vic in the end, recognizing that his violent crimes are for her, rather than against her. The movie retains a surface-level depth ness on Melinda’s and Vic’s form of sexual release outside of their marriage, sparing us any vivid scenes of blood and sex but keeping the drama, defeating all the fun of the genre.
Deep Water was one of my most anticipated movies. I regularly fawn over erotic thrillers like In the Cut, Blue Velvet, Body Heat, Eyes Wide Shut, and The Handmaiden. With the exception of In the Cut and The Handmaiden, the majority of these films were created in the 20th century. In Jezebel’s The Lost Art of the Erotic Thriller, the 80s and 90s were the origins of the erotic thriller genre, created [after the sex wars, against the backdrop of AIDS, and in the midst of increasingly fraught public discussions of gender politics—could pleasure and pain intertwine so enthrallingly on film.” Erotic thrillers such as Adrian Lyne’s Fatal Attraction and Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct are credited for launching this campy genre but how does it still hold relevance in the 21st century? Americans are still afraid of sex. Polyamory and open relationships are regularly discussed in dating and social circles. Violence and sex are still common motivators for the start and end of a relationship. Two years of lovers being forced to quarantine inside the house has threatened the stability of many marriages. I continue to crave erotic thrillers, ones like The Handmaiden that provide us with forbidden love, a recipe for murder, and nail digging intimate sex scenes, but remain disappointed by how Deep Water‘s definition of erotic was short and poorly orchestrated sex scenes with choppy editing and the thriller was Vic riding around in his bicycle, which could be the reason why he is impotent.
It’s hard to believe that the same person who directed the same iconic rabbit in the stew scene in Fatal Attraction and fervent sex scenes in Unfaithful could create a film as empty as Deep Water when the complexity of polyamory and family is involved.
Article referenced: https://jezebel.com/the-lost-art-of-the-erotic-thriller-1847188104