valerie cummings

Promises much but ultimately fails to fully deliver. A couple who love each other but have different ways of expressing that love find themselves in a dangerous game. The wife is a passionate free spirit who flaunts her relationships with male “friends” in an effort to get a rise out of her brilliant but dull, loyal husband (Ben Affleck). The husband’s slow burn boils beneath the surface. The movie creates a tension that builds tediously until it finally erupts in a series of events that impact the couple’s relationship. But in the end the movie leaves the audience hanging, left to draw its own conclusions about how, why and in what ways the relationship has transformed. Several obvious questions are also left unanswered. Ben Affleck as the enigmatic husband whose deadpan expression is meant to pique our curiosity as to what devious thoughts might be brewing in his mind, doesn’t work as well as it might if an actor like Ryan Gosling was playing the role. All in all Deep Water is an entertaining and intriguing take on how love, deep and complex can play out in opposite ways. But with all of its promise, it is ultimately unsatisfying and doesn’t rise to its potential.