“Deep Water” (2022)
Mirror, Mirror, on the wall
Mirror, Mirror, on the wall
Who’s the most unlikeable character of all?
Surprisingly, Deep Water is only director Adrian Lyne’s ninth all time big screen outing in the director’s chair and in a forty year career that has seen previous cinematic gems spanning the generations. He followed his 1980 directorial debut Foxes with Flashdance three years later before a run of Zeitgeist films followed: 9 & 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction, Jacob’s Ladder (criminally underrated), Indecent Proposal, Lolita and Unfaithful in 2002. A two decade hiatus ensued before his return here, and via the original and highly popular source novel of the same name written by Patricia Highsmith. Highsmith also penned the screenplay for the film alongside Zach Helm and Sam Levinson and, more personally, I have a rather large soft spot for the acting, directing and writing talents of the film’s Marquee male star, Ben Affleck. Whilst I feared I wouldn’t like or even enjoy this film, I actually liked it immensely, found it thought provoking, the lives painted repugnant, the characters incredibly unlikeable and, as per my opening line of this article, you may very well be deciding who is indeed the most unlikeable character of them all, and you might miss the lead up to the very pleasing twist to the ending in the process.
Here’s a spoiler light premise:
In the hills of Louisiana we follow the carefree lives of a mega-rich and moneyed group of friends who seemingly spend every other evening at a neighbouring friend’s vast, opulent and luxurious estate living the very highest of lives. They seem to live in each others pockets and always follow each other in a high society circle with lavish pool parties and soirees around grand pianos amid local tittle-tattle and low brow gossip. Someone has disappeared. Murdered perhaps? One couple appear central to everything within this small circle of detestable characters, and especially so the gossip.
He isn’t “normal”.
She is “suffocating”.
And their somewhat strange life only fuels the fire of the moneyed grapevine.
Tracy Letts is yet again fantastic in the supporting role of wannabe writer and publisher “Don Wilson” and he heads up a vibrant, if rather detestable cast of supporting characters from the likes of Dash Mihok as “Jonas Fernandez”, Kristen Connolly (brilliant) as “Kelly Wilson” and Lil Rey Howery (equally brilliant) as “Grant”. Some of these characters form an inner circle within the larger circle and all support the film’s stellar two Marquee roles, as well as the cameo role that may well make you smile very broadly indeed.
“Vic” (Ben Affleck) Somewhat reminiscent of his shadowy and can he/can’t he be trusted role in the David Fincher directed Gone Girl in 2014, Affleck is very good as the self assured if a little self contained and repressed early retired “rich as fuck” technology creating “genius”. Deeply in love with his much younger and more free spirited and carefree wife, Vic is also a devoted Father to his livewire daughter and rightly proud of the family he’s devoted to. The calm assurance of his outer shell masks the deep inner turmoil of an open marriage or perhaps even a marriage of convenience that sees his wife freely and openly taking lovers outside of their union, the angst of which is brilliantly captured by director Lyne’s long lingering camera shots. By his wife’s own frank admission, he’s the only man who will ever “stay” with her, but is he only staying with her because of the openness of their marital agreement and the assurance that this ensures his family remain together?
As with Gone Girl in 2014, there is much, much more to the role of Vic and Affleck’s brilliant portrayal of a repressed loner who has the family and wife he’s always craved, but can he continue with the pretence?
“Trixie” (Grace Jenkins) Your star of the show! Arguably in more ways than one too, but what isn’t up for debate is the raw bundle of energy and joy that Grace Jenkins infuses into her pixyish young character and if you’re not singing along with her to Old MacDonald Had A Farm, well, you have a heart of pure stone! Stay for the end credits for yet more singing delights that will surely make you smile as you unravel the ending to the film.
“Melinda” (Ana de Armas) Since her introduction to me via my amateur film critique for Blade Runner 2049 five years ago, Ana has had a prodigious rise since via The Informer and Knives Out in 2019 as well as a high profile cameo in the latest James Bond film No Time To Die last year. Here she is magnificent, utterly magnificent, as the life and soul of a party that her husband prefers to stay on the periphery of. Whereby Vic seems calm and self assured, Melinda is insecure, childish and desperate for the attention of a man who will command HER attention. Despite seemingly having everything (except a man who will demonstrably fight for her and her affections), Ana de Armas really infuses a terribly unlikeable character, a prissy, entitled, unhappy and borderline alcoholic nymphomaniac with a refreshing zeal in a thunderous individual performance.
I loved the ending as I simply didn’t see it coming, and I loved the actors portrayals of a hideous collection of duplicitous lives being swamped in the mire of emptiness, a little envy and more than a huge quantity of vapid tittle-tattle. What impressed most of all was the constant juxtaposition between the calm and the storm, the light and the dark, the alive and the extremely dead, and of a story well told of a tussle for the ultimate seat of dominance and a battle of wills and even intellect between a couple needing each other, but for entirely ill judged reasons.
So who is the most unlikeable character of them all?
I’d heartily recommend you giving this a watch to decide for yourselves.
Thanks for reading. My three most recently published, and always spoiler free, film reviews are linked below:
“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Amusing adaptation of Being Nicolas Cagemedium.com
“The Black Phone” (2022)
Superb supernatural, psychological horrormedium.com
“The Phantom of the Open” (2022)
Arnold Palmtree and the “World’s Worst Golfer”.medium.com