Early in Deep Water, Vic Van Allen (Ben Affleck) casually confesses to murder. He's having a low-key confrontation with Joel Nash (Brendan C. Miller), the younger man who's been sleeping with Vic's wife, Melinda (Ana de Armas). Hooking up with men who are younger and more energetic than her brooding husband has become a habit for Melinda. Vic tells Joel that he was responsible for the fate of Melinda's last lover, Martin McRae, who's been reported missing. Soon word spreads among Vic and Melinda's society friends, but no one believes it. Vic dismisses his assertion as a joke. Obviously, he didn't kill Martin. Or did he?

That question is not nearly as tantalizing as Deep Water makes it out to be -- even after Vic commits other immoral acts targeted at Melinda's lovers. Deep Water has an impressive pedigree attached to it: it's the first movie in 20 years by director Adrian Lyne (Fatal AttractionUnfaithful). Also, its source material comes from suspense maven Patricia Highsmith, whose novels have been made into some of the most acclaimed thriller films, including Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Highsmith's 1957 novel Deep Water has itself been adapted twice -- once as a 1981 French movie, and again in 1983 as a German miniseries. In 2022's Deep Water, Lyne and screenwriters Zach Helm and Sam Levinson move the setting to present-day New Orleans.

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For an erotic thriller, the heat between Vic and Melinda is minimal on-screen. The supposedly steamy sex scenes that inspired Disney to send the movie to streaming rather than release it in theaters are relatively tame. One particular intimate moment ends so abruptly that it's hard to believe it wasn't meant to last longer. Affleck plays Vic as more grumpy than homicidal, and there's little suspense to his confrontations. It becomes almost comedic to watch the multiple scenes of Vic inviting one of Melinda's paramours over for an evening of dinner and intimidation, especially when Vic shares his oddball hobby of raising pet snails. Showing off his terrariums full of gastropods does not make Vic seem menacing, no matter how artfully Lyne frames the squirming, slimy animals. If there's a metaphor in Vic's obsession with snails, it gets lost in the translation from book to film.

Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck in Deep Water

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De Armas fares better, bringing playful sensuality to her portrayal of the mercurial Melinda. She delights in taunting her husband, parading her lovers in front of him with little regard for privacy or the potential consequences. There are occasional hints that this is all some sort of twisted sex game for the couple -- as if Melinda encourages Vic's violent tendencies, and that her various boyfriends are just pawns in an increasingly deadly act of sexual role-playing. But Deep Water never explores that idea fully.

Instead, Deep Water spends time on a subplot about Vic being pursued by the couple's writer friend Don Wilson (Tracy Letts), who becomes fixated on Vic's culpability in a supposedly accidental death. Lyne and the screenwriters make vague efforts at social commentary by giving Vic a background in creating military technology, but it only amounts to a couple of references. Like most of the supporting characters, including Lil Rel Howery and Dash Mihok as Vic's generic buddies, Don pops up to offer observations on the plot without coming across as a real person. That could be another bit of commentary on the insular nature of Vic and Melinda's relationship, but instead, it gives Deep Water a disjointed, haphazard feel.

Ben Affleck in Deep Water

There's almost no suspense until close to the end of Deep Water. The character development is so murky that there's no sense of what outcome anyone is aiming to achieve.  The only relationship in Deep Water that makes any sense is Vic's loving dynamic with his precocious young daughter Trixie (Grace Jenkins), whose cute car sing-along to disco classic "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" may be the most entertaining moment in the whole movie.

Much of the movie takes place in harsh sunlight, captured in flat images by cinematographer Eigil Bryld. That could give the story a sense of forbidden intimacy, but instead, it creates distance. Lyne spent most of his career bringing audiences into characters' most vulnerable, erotically charged moments, but with Deep Water, he creates a movie as cold and inert as Vic's pet snails.

Deep Water premieres Friday, March 18 on Hulu.

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