Deep Water Review: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Meets an SNL Sketch

 

This film presents an askew world that can be so jarring, it comes back to being unintentionally humorous before settling into a tense plot. If I didn’t know it came from two masterminds of the psychological thriller genre who knew what they were doing — the source material by novelist Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train, Talented Mr Ripley) and Adrian Lyne as director (Fatal Attraction)---I would describe this as an extremely bizarre cross between the 2009 Saturday Night Live sketch “I Have Sex with Your Wife” and the 1966 classic Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf in which an older couple (George and Martha, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) unleash a 90-minute burst of raw, sociopathic marital dysfunction on an unassuming young couple they’ve invited to dinner.

The key players are Vic (Ben Affleck), a lower-middle-aged entrepreneur who’s now a member of the idle rich after retiring off a technological invention. His wife, Melinda, (Ana de Armas) is a gorgeous firecracker with a voracious sexual appetite who seems to get off on having affairs right under her husband’s nose.

It’s initially kind of vague whether seeing her wife gallivant with other men in such close proximity is something he welcomes as a kink or just tolerates it, but yikes! These two need therapy before things get all murdery and out of hand.

Or maybe, things have already gotten that far? Vic even admits it out loud to one of Melinda’s lovers.

On the surface, little about this film makes sense. Why do all three of Melinda’s on-screen lovers seem so blase about violating Vic and Melinda’s marriage after coming face-to-face with Vic? They all consistently seem to feel little guilt and have little concern for their own safety at this transgression. What is up with Vic and snails? If it’s an open secret that Vic killed someone in what appears to be a tight-knit neighborhood, why isn’t he a social pariah?

This is up there with Darren Aronofsky and David Lynch in terms of mind-f***ery, but here’s the thing:

There’s a great internal consistency to this world that demands admiration. These two might be less memorable than George and Martha from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but that’s partially because George and Martha were the king and queen of mood whiplash.

Instead, Melinda is always a suburban temptress and Vic is always a mysterious cauldron of dark impulses.

If you feel like this film doesn’t feel right, it’s not supposed to. It’s a skewed universe where these people are too insane to exist but they do resemble certain aspects of an unhealthy marriage pushed to extremes. And to the degree that anything still doesn’t match up, it’s certainly discussion-provoking.

Every 2021 Film I Saw: Quick Takes

1.            Blue Bayou-Filmed, directed, and starring South Korean Justin Chon, the story of a Korean immigrant born and raised in Louisiana facing deportation is difficult with glimmering vestiges of human triumph. I was floored by the sentiment.

2.            House of Gucci-Very Shakespearean in all its delicious tragedy and back-stabbing. These people were larger than life and the story takes on that grandeur.  

3.            West Side Story-The degree of difficulty to adapt a classic and make it your own is high, so many great decisions went to make a fuller and richer story and put character developments in historic context 

4.            Last Night in Soho-I admire that a director who has always had comedy in each of his pictures was able to do something entirely without it. It was a great mystery, time capsule and comic of age story and I was overwhelmed with the kinetic frenzy. My one minor complaint is I didn’t love the horror elements.

5.            Licorice Pizza-There was an extremely icky age difference but I enjoyed so much of the nostalgic drench and vignette-like nature of the story.

6.            Nightmare Alley-This visually beautiful tragic tale of a drifter is very rewarding on second viewing

7.            Concrete Cowboy-Idris Elba played the hard black dad like Denzel Washington in Fences but convincingly added the layer of empathy and caring for his child and that vulnerability in their relationship really got to me. I didn’t understand what this horse stable was doing in the middle of Philadelphia but I also got that it was important to them

8.            Last Duel-Slightly slower than ideal in terms of authenticity but the trade-off is authenticity.

9.            Power of the Dog-An incredibly strong attention to detail, great performances, and, in my opinion, a thematic thrust worthy of a Best Picture win.

10.          Free Guy-Yes, it's fun, but a lot of world building and the kind of detailed storyline that could transfer over to a robust sci-fi film

11.          Jungle Cruise-More just fun, but I found the central relationships moving enough, and I'm a sucker for Amazon stories

12.          Courier-It had a first half that was markedly different than the second (kind of like the Dev Patel film Lion) that was tonally a bit jarring, but it was a spy film that moved at the speed of life.

13.          Mayday-Very eerie and quiet film that sneaks up on you about a violated teenager who's taken away to a fantasy land where she can be in the protection of woman but she's also lulling men to their deaths

14.          Don’t Look Up-Yes, it was depressing, but it was sharp

15.          Queen Bees-Another entry into the "Old People Team Up to Make a Movie" genre with Jane Curtin, Ellen Burstyn, Loretta DeVine, Ann Margaret, Christopher Lloyd, and James Caan. Very sweet and tuned into the twilight years

16.          Moxie-A high school melodrama directed by Amy Poehler (maybe a companion piece to Mean Girls?) that's sharp and funny at times. Navigates the current climate well without casting feminism or men as villains.

17.          Woman in the Window-A Hitchcockonian mystery that oozed suspense and mystery

18.          Val-The only documentary I watched this year about Val Kilmer. A very self-conscious look at fame and coming to terms with his physical demise

19.          Ride the Eagle-An impressive small-scale production about a guy (Jake Johnson) coping with the death of a mother (Susan Sarandon) he barely knew

20.          Eyes of Tammy Faye-A nicely focused biopic which picked the right parts of Tammy's life to focus on and had a good villain in Vincent D'Onofrio's Jerry Fallwell. There was a tremendous amount to appreciate in Tammy Faye's arc as evidenced by Jessica's Oscar BUT I would've liked a litle more development to Andrew Garfield's character

21.          Coda-It was sweet and it did show us a world we hadn't seen before, but I felt the music part itself was full of plot holes and the piano teacher to the rescue at the audition is an old trope. Still I'm happy it won in an odd way: The Oscars are extremely predictable with the glut of precursors so a bizarre upset is welcome.

22.          Passing-Well-shot and acted and I’d even buy the score on CD. The conversations were really interesting as well but at times they felt a little theatrical as if they were playing for a small art-house audience.

23.        Ice Road-I love the guts of whoever pitched this film: “Speed but twice as slow and they’ll be going on ice.” Amber Midthunder could be a star down the road.

24.       Space Jam 2-I love the Looney Tunes though they feel a little off in the looniness department and, even in the first Space Jam, Bugs, Duffy and Lola had bigger roles which set them up to fuel more of the comedy (Michael Jordan/LeBron James is the straight man). Still, the film was fun, the plot felt updated in clever ways (taking a page from the e-sports world and lampooning entertainment’s overemphasis on IPs), and I enjoyed the greater focus on the son-father relationship that the original Space Jam should have also been about.

25.          Beckett-It's a contextless action film like the Bourne series where we're just shown a guy doing lots of amazing fighting but we don't know the why of anything. Tonally, the film held but barely.

26.          Worth-The film was executed well, but it was kind of dull. At the same time, it's not that easy to make a film about an accountant making risk assessment calculations.

27.          Cruella-Beautiful to look at and Emma Stone's iteration of the character was a fun underdog to root for. Paul Walter Hauser and Joel Frye also make excellent sidekicks. Still it went on way too long and there’s a such thing as too many twists.

27.          Pig-It's nice to see Nicholas Cage celebrated for his acting, but the film is a bit self-serious. It’s just food seasoning, guys: No need to start a fight club over it or build an organized crime empire around it.

28.       Legend  of Shang-Tsi and the Ten Rings-I could predict almost every plot development five minutes in advance, and what I couldn’t predict, I didn’t care about.  I was also bothered that the film expected me to know who Trevor whatever-his-name-is, F--- Off Marvel, I don’t care about crossovers. And shouldn’t side kicks have some use? (I’m looking at you Seth Rogen as Green Hornet, who punched out maybe 2 people in comparison to Kato single-handedly fighting dozens of goons at once).  But, that sky scraper fight scene was next level.

29.         Flag Day-This was a film…..that I watched…..sorry, I barely remember watching this..

31.          Being the Ricardos-Aaron Sorkin had been on a really good streak—Molly’s Game, Trial of the Chicago 7—but this is like “Studio 60” backwards in terms of egotistical awfulness. Yes, the actors handle the smug material well, but the material is all about praising the ego of the creator at the expense of others (the producers, writers and co-stars are secondary to Lucy’s brilliance) and had little to do with Lucy who was funny.

32.          French Dispatch-The only Wes Anderson film I wouldn’t recommend. There is such a thing as too bloated of an ensemble and too much attention to detail.

33.          Electric Life of Louis P Wain-Too cutesy-wutesy and by the numbers.

34.          Lost Daughter-Slow and dreary. It might have all the right moves to offer but it didn’t hook me.

35.        Mitchells vs Machines-Don’t know if I remember this too much either. That’s not a good sign.

36.          Tomorrow War-Sooo much uncanny valley and ugly creatures on the screen and this is probably one of the few times when there’s no debate that a time travel film makes no sense. Normally that genre can hand-wave a lot of plot holes.

37.          Barb and Star Go to Mar El Vista-I know it had its fans, but I found this overly low-brow and couldn’t find a single scene that screams “Brilliant!.” Maybe Barb and Star being fired from their jobs comes close but that’s in the beginning of the movie and front loads with lots of expectations.  You realize that these two made Bridesmaids? It’s mostly standard mix-em-ups and a comedy of doors.

 This felt like when Mike Meyers or M. Night Shyamalan refuse to listen to studio notes about a bad idea.

38.          Thunder Force-Because it stars Melissa McCarthy, one might assume it’s a send-up to superhero tropes but the film plays the superhero story pretty straight despite the film still having the outlines of a comedy. It’s a pretty awkward clash. At least Jason Bateman seemed to know he was in a comic film.

39.          Breaking News in Yuma County-A dark comedy that feels as if someone read cliff notes on the Coen Brothers films (people fabricate dumb schemes, people get blackmailed, people are violently hurt, etc) and tried to make a film solely off that. It probably doesn’t help that the scheme is not just dumb but uninteresting. Allyson Janney pretends to know details about your husband’s death because she likes being on the news and the fame it brings her, but do people really like being a talking head on the news?

40.          Kate-Like Beckett, it’s a contextless action film (we’re not meant to know much about the hero) but, it’s also a contextless shoot-em-up and it’s too high in the ratio of violence to context for me to not see it as gratuitous.  

41.          Stowaway-Boring attempt at sci-fi and it’s lifeboat ethics weren’t anything I agreed with.