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Set in colonial India against Gandhi's rise to power, it's the story of 8-year-old Chuyia, who is widowed and sent to a home to live in penitence; once there, Chuyia's feisty presence deeply... Read all Set in colonial India against Gandhi's rise to power, it's the story of 8-year-old Chuyia, who is widowed and sent to a home to live in penitence; once there, Chuyia's feisty presence deeply affects the lives of the other residents. Set in colonial India against Gandhi's rise to power, it's the story of 8-year-old Chuyia, who is widowed and sent to a home to live in penitence; once there, Chuyia's feisty presence deeply affects the lives of the other residents.

• Deepa Mehta
• Anurag Kashyap
• John Abraham
• Seema Biswas
• 157 User reviews
• 85 Critic reviews
• 77 Metascore
• 17 wins & 18 nominations total

• (as Sarala)
• Chuyia's Husband
• Mother in Law
• (as Iranganee Serasinghe)

• (as Manorma)

• 'Auntie' Patiraji
• (as Dr. Vidula Javalgekar)
• Woman Bather

• Upset Woman
• (as Dolly Ahluwalia Tewari)

• Bhagavati, Narayan's Mother

• (as Raghuvir Yadav)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia George Lucas took out a full-page ad in "Variety" to support Deepa Mehta in her struggle to make this film when Indian authorities made clear their intentions to shut the production down.
• Goofs Kalyani's dog appears older in the scene in which it escapes than the next time it is shown.

[from trailer]

Narayana : All the old traditions are dying out.

Kalyani : But what is good should not die out.

Narayana : And who will decide what is good and what is not?

Kalyani : You!

• Alternate versions In addition to the Hindi language version, an English language version was also shot (back-to-back).
• Connections Featured in The 79th Annual Academy Awards (2007)
• Soundtracks Aoyo Re Sakhi Composed by A.R. Rahman Lyrics by Sukhwinder Singh Sung by Sukhwinder Singh ; Sadhana Sargam (as Sadhma Sargam)

User reviews 157

• May 27, 2006
• How long is Water? Powered by Alexa
• May 26, 2006 (United States)
• Official site
• Central Province, Sri Lanka (location)
• Deepa Mehta Films
• Flagship International
• David Hamilton Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• Apr 30, 2006
• $13,014,956

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 57 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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‘Stillwater’ Review: Matt Damon Gets to the Heart of How the World Sees Americans Right Now

'Spotlight' director Tom McCarthy collaborates with top French screenwriter Thomas Bidegain in this humbling Marseille-set crime drama.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Americans are used to watching Americans save the day in movies. That’s the kind of hero Bill Baker wants to be for his daughter Allison — a young woman convicted of murdering her girlfriend while studying abroad — in “Spotlight” director Tom McCarthy ’s not-at-all-conventional crime thriller “ Stillwater .” The setup will sound familiar to anyone who remembers the Amanda Knox case: Five clicks in to a nine-year sentence, Allison has always maintained her innocence. After new evidence arises, she writes a letter to her lawyer asking for help. But she’s careful not to involve her dad directly. “I cannot trust him with this. He’s not capable,” she writes.

To a particular kind of man, words like that are a direct challenge. And when that man is played by Matt Damon in sleeveless T-shirts and a bald-eagle tattoo, we expect him to save the day anyway. Maybe he does, but that’s not the reason McCarthy chose to tell this story. Originally, he just wanted to film a mystery in a Mediterranean town, deciding at some point that the French port of Marseille would do the trick. But in the time that it took to make the movie, something changed with America. Maybe you noticed. Certainly, the world did.

McCarthy tells “Stillwater” from Bill Baker’s point of view, but he invites audiences to see the character from others’ perspectives as well, to observe how this out-of-place roughneck looks to the people he meets abroad — and especially to a single mother named Virginie (“Call My Agent!” star Camille Cottin) whom the gruff widower befriends early on. Back home in Stillwater, Okla., Bill does odd jobs since losing his oil-rig gig. He wouldn’t be in Marseille if not for his daughter (Abigail Breslin). He’s not a tourist, and he’s not interested in learning the language. But he’s not the stereotypical “ugly American” either. Bill prays, he’s polite and he believes in doing the right thing. And if Allison says she’s innocent, then the right thing in this God-fearing, gun-owning guy’s eyes is to help her prove it.

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Now, anyone could’ve written that movie. But McCarthy was smart: He enlisted the top screenwriter working in France today, Thomas Bidegain (“A Prophet”), and his writing partner Noé Debré to collaborate and wound up with a completely different movie. Well, maybe not completely different, but different enough to disappoint those expecting to see Matt Damon whip out a gun and kick down some doors in pursuit of justice. (Let Mark Wahlberg make that film.)

Bidegain’s signature — the thing that sets him apart from the vast majority of screenwriters — is that he doesn’t write “the scene where” a specific plot point is supposed to happen. Watching most Hollywood thrillers, that’s all you get, as if the creators bought a bunch of index cards, divided the movie into story-advancing moments (the scene where A, the scene where B) and taped them to the wall, then built the script from that. Bidegain knows we’ve all seen enough movies that such literal-mindedness gets boring, and so he and Debré come at each scene sideways: They let certain things happen off screen, focusing instead on seemingly mundane snapshots that reveal far more about character.

“Stillwater” contains a mix of both approaches — a scene where a friend of Virginie’s asks Bill whom he voted for is a prime example — and while it’s hard to say who wrote what (Marcus Hinchey, of terrific Netflix drama “Come Sunday,” is also credited), the movie’s more interesting for being less obvious. Naturally, Bill wants to clear his daughter’s name, and “Stillwater” shows him going about it. But the cultural barriers make it impossible to get far by himself — a trip to north Marseille’s notorious Kallisté neighborhood leaves him hospitalized — and so he enlists Viriginie, winning her over by being kind to her 8-year-old daughter Maya (Lilou Siauvaud).

Of course, Bill can’t change French law, and it’s not clear that even if he could locate the guy Allison claims was responsible — an Arab who was there in the bar that night — he’d be able to overturn her conviction. But as he and Virginie spend time together, Bill shows Maya the kind of fatherly concern he was too drunk and reckless to give Allison when she was a kid. The guilt of that irresponsibility weighs heavy on Bill, adding another dimension to Damon’s remarkable performance. There’s something caveman-like about the way the actor carries his body, in the scowl on his face and slow drawl of his Southern accent. The character has a temper problem, and from the looks of him, he could tear someone in two — although that might not be advisable in a foreign country.

After hitting a dead end in the investigation, Bill decides to stay on in Marseille. He moves in with Virginie and Maya, picking up a few words of French and playing handyman around the house. To dub this Bill’s redemption might oversimplify things, although something’s plainly changing in him. And that change is the soul of “Stillwater.” Resisting any temptation to be cute, yet bolstered by child actor Siauvaud’s immensely sympathetic presence, the movie gives Bill — as well as audiences — a taste of another life.

Will Americans who haven’t been abroad connect with this part of the movie? Or will they be bored with every second that Bill isn’t proactively trying to prove Allison’s innocence? At 140 minutes, “Stillwater” spends a lot more time on Bill’s new domestic situation with Virginie and Maya than viewers probably expect. But then, these scenes take time, since they’re tasked with conveying more than just the latest development in the case. (By contrast, straightforward genre movies have the luxury of being tight.) Ironically, the clunkiest scene here occurs when the cops show up.

McCarthy has more on his mind, using Damon’s character to “make hole” (as roughnecks do) in various assumptions Americans hold about themselves. Bill serves as a mirror of what foreigners see when a certain kind of cowboy barrels through the saloon doors of another country, hands on his holster, and it’s not necessarily flattering. On the surface, that may not satisfy everyone, but then, to coin a phrase, “Stillwater” runs deep.

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition), July 8, 2021. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 140 MIN.

• Production: A Focus Features release of a Participant, DreamWorks Pictures presentation of a Slow Pony, Anonymous Content production, in association with 3Dot Prods., Supernatural Pictures. Producers: Steve Golin, Tom McCarthy, Jonathan King, Liza Chasin. Executive producers: Jeff Skoll, David Linde, Robert Kessel, Mari Jo Winkler-Ioffreda, Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré. Co-producers: Raphaël Benoliel, Melissa Wells.
• Crew: Director: Tom McCarthy. Screenplay: Tom McCarthy & Marcus Hinchey, Thomas Bidegain & Noé Debré. Camera: Masanobu Takayanagi. Editor: Tom McArdle. Music: Mychael Danna.
• With: Matt Damon, Camille Cottin, Abigail Breslin, Lilou Siauvaud, Deanna Dunagan, Idir Azougli, Anne Le Ny.

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The Thriller Is Sexy Again in Ben Affleck’s Deep Water

The director Adrian Lyne’s first film in 20 years represents a comeback for the type of sultry, adult drama that used to pack theaters.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Ben Affleck, resplendent with stubble and weary eye bags, is a rich but bored husband with a beautiful (but also bored) wife, rattling around in a giant house wondering what to do with himself. Soon enough, a dead body appears. That’s the premise of Deep Water , a sultry new thriller starring Affleck and Ana de Armas as his wayward partner, but I could just as easily be describing Gone Girl , David Fincher’s superlative 2014 thriller about another Affleck-led relationship that goes sour. That tension is what the actor brings to the table these days: In any scene, you’re not sure whether you should kiss him or call the police.

Ever since the once–boyishly charming A-lister entered his 40s, he’s leaned into roles that emphasize a haunted past without sacrificing his marquee-friendly looks. Deep Water , directed by Adrian Lyne, is a healthy throwback to a previously dominant genre—the erotic drama. Lyne was once a master of the form, churning out hits such as Fatal Attraction , Indecent Proposal , and Unfaithful before seemingly retiring 20 years ago. His return plays to his strengths, stringing together tasteful sex and murder-mystery material to create a perfectly dependable two hours of grown-up fun.

Read: Ben Affleck gives the performance of his career

Because this is 2022, however, that grown-up fun has been relegated to a streaming service. ( Deep Water will debut on Hulu this Friday.) The film started shooting back in 2019, but its release was delayed time and again thanks to COVID; we’ve waited so long to see it, Affleck and de Armas even had an offscreen relationship that’s already run its course. Fox, Deep Water ’s original studio, has now been subsumed under Disney, and the family-friendly House of Mouse has decided to keep the adult story out of cinemas. (Disney has not commented on this decision.) That’s a sad fate for Deep Water , given that it represents a comeback for a type of movie that used to pack houses. ( Fatal Attraction was one of the biggest hits of 1987.)

Still, taking in all the steamy silliness from the comfort of your own home is enjoyable enough. In Deep Water , which is based on a 1957 Patricia Highsmith novel (itself a cited inspiration for Gone Girl ), Affleck plays Vic Van Allen, a retired microchip designer living in a fancy New Orleans mansion with his wife, Melinda (de Armas), and adorable daughter, Trixie (Grace Jenkins). Though the couple’s partnership is not without sexual spark, Melinda’s eye constantly wanders, and she fearlessly parades a series of men in front of her husband over the course of the film, canoodling with them at parties under his nose. Early in the movie, Vic takes Melinda’s latest squeeze aside and hints that he might have had a hand in the disappearance of her last supposed lover.

Is the comment a bit of jealous braggadocio, or is Vic actually a cold-blooded killer? That’s the keep-you-guessing appeal of Deep Water , which sees Vic and Melinda’s relationship vacillate between tenderness and simmering rage. In Highsmith’s novel, their marriage has entirely desiccated; Vic merely tolerates Melinda’s transgressions as long as she doesn’t ask for a messy divorce. But this update, written by Zach Helm and Sam Levinson, is a lot less clear on how officially “open” the couple are, and whether Melinda’s affairs are an attempt to catch her husband’s attention or push him away.

Affleck is therefore well cast; he can play Vic as a piece of dead weight while still winking at the movie-star magnetism that lurks underneath, teasing it out as the story develops. The role is far darker (and pulpier) than the one he played in the inspirational drama The Way Back , but whereas in that film he portrayed an alcoholic rediscovering his love of basketball, here his character’s true passion leads to a lot of suspicious disappearances. Once Vic makes his veiled threat to Melinda’s boy toy, he starts upping the menacing behavior around each subsequent lover (played by Jacob Elordi and Finn Wittrock, among others).

De Armas is one of the most exciting young stars around right now— her Knives Out performance was revelatory , and she was the best thing about No Time to Die last year. But she gets the short stick here, mostly glowering in the background as Melinda ponders whether Vic has turned as villainous as he’s intimating. Their scenes together have genuine sizzle, something many a modern Hollywood romance lacks. But Deep Water could use a little more shading for its female lead, especially some further explanation of just how her relationship with Vic deteriorated. Instead, audiences are served up multiple moments of Vic communing with snails, which he keeps as pets (a reference to Highsmith herself, who apparently once pulled gastropods out of her handbag at a dinner party).

Even in good whodunits, the setup is typically way more exciting than the payoff: For example, the first two-thirds of Unfaithful , Lyne’s previous film, are alluring and skillfully performed, while the final act feels more perfunctory. In Deep Water , viewers will have much more fun guessing at how dangerous Vic and Melinda’s cat-and-mouse game is going to get than watching the results unfold. Characters start making mistakes, the body count reaches implausible levels, and practical questions of just who is keeping an eye on Vic and Melinda’s daughter during all this mayhem start to overwhelm the narrative. But Deep Water is still a robust, well-acted thriller that lands most of its major twists gracefully; for that, all lesser sins can be forgiven.

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'Deep Water' is a disjointed take on an unhappy couple's open marriage

Justin Chang

Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck play a couple whose marriage is not what it seems in Deep Water. Claire Folger/Courtesy of 20th Century Studio hide caption

Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck play a couple whose marriage is not what it seems in Deep Water.

The 81-year-old English director Adrian Lyne made his mark in Hollywood decades ago with movies like Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal and Unfaithful — slick, ridiculous and generally irresistible tales of wayward spouses and reckless desires.

Lyne's comeback after a 20-year absence is one of the selling points of Deep Water , his new adaptation of a 1957 Patricia Highsmith novel. Another is that the movie's stars, Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas , began dating while working on the film back in 2019. As you may have heard, they've since broken up, and the movie — which was made for theaters but delayed multiple times by the pandemic — is finally being released on Hulu with a conspicuous lack of fanfare.

And so — like Eyes Wide Shut with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, or By the Sea with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt — Deep Water offers the titillating spectacle of a real-life ill-fated couple playing a fictional ill-fated couple. For what it's worth, Affleck and de Armas don't have much on-screen chemistry, which seems somewhat intentional. They play Vic and Melinda Van Allen, a fabulously wealthy couple who live with their young daughter in New Orleans.

Vic and Melinda have an open marriage, at least where Melinda's concerned: She spends most of her time chasing dreamy, mostly dull-witted young men around town and sometimes inviting them over to the house for dinner. Vic is good at hiding his jealousy, up to a point. Part of the fun of the movie is the way he manages to express his contempt for Melinda and her many lovers without losing his cool.

Highsmith's icy cynicism makes for an intriguing but far from seamless fit with Lyne's soapy style. He and his writers, Zach Helm and Sam Levinson, have moved the story up to the present day and given the plot a few tweaks. But the general premise is the same: When Melinda's lovers start turning up dead, rumors begin to spread around town that Vic was responsible. The writers have also retained some of Highsmith's more eccentric flourishes, including Vic's prized snail collection: If you've ever wanted to see Ben Affleck look on affectionately while snails slither across his open palm, this is the movie for you.

At times, Deep Water seems to move as slowly as those snails. Sometimes it's a self-aware hoot, and sometimes it's a disjointed drag. Significant chunks of the story seem to have wound up on the cutting-room floor, particularly as it speeds toward an almost comically abrupt ending.

Meanwhile, the director keeps piling on his signature touches, from the Architectural Digest furnishings to the tasteful nudity; it wouldn't be an Adrian Lyne movie if the female lead didn't sit around soaking in an antique bathtub. The story does raise the intriguing possibility that Melinda and Vic might be engaging in some kinky extended role play, but whatever game these two are up to isn't, in the end, terribly interesting.

De Armas, who was terrific in movies like Knives Out and No Time to Die , seems to have been directed mainly to flirt, drink and scream at the top of her lungs. Affleck, always an underrated actor, fares better: As in Gone Girl , another potboiler about a loveless marriage, he excels at playing the golden boy gone to seed. Even before we learn how Vic earned his millions — he invented a microchip now used in drone warfare — there's something ominous and inscrutable beneath his calm surface. It's enough to trigger the suspicions of a nosy neighbor, played by a typically sharp Tracy Letts .

What's refreshing about Deep Water , especially in contrast to Fatal Attraction and Unfaithful , is that it lacks the moralistic streak that has often marred Lyne's work, where characters stray from happy marriages and wind up paying the price in a flurry of horrific violence. This movie slyly inverts that setup, partly by making the Van Allens' marriage so unhappy to begin with. Like Highsmith, the director seems to harbor no illusions about how truly appalling people can be, and his honesty is bracing. I can't call Deep Water a good movie, exactly, but I can't deny that there's something good about having Adrian Lyne back.

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Ben affleck and ana de armas in adrian lyne’s ‘deep water’: film review.

The director returns after a 20-year absence to the familiar territory of high-gloss adultery and its fallout in this Patricia Highsmith adaptation, premiering on Hulu.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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The primary usefulness of Deep Water is as a record for celebrity chroniclers of the off-camera romance that made co-stars Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas a tabloid thing for a minute, hopefully with better chemistry than they generate onscreen. But it does serve a secondary purpose for those of us who have ever considered the prodigious gifts of Tracy Letts as both playwright and actor, and wondered, “Is there anything he can’t do?” Well, turns out he can’t emerge unscathed from an Adrian Lyne erotic thriller, not that anyone does in this case.

Letts plays Don Wilson, a thinly sketched author of some sort, constantly side-eyeing his circle of well-heeled friends who go from one garden or pool party to the next in their leafy suburban New Orleans bubble. Don is supposedly looking to uncover dirt for a book he’s working on, but mostly his distasteful expression just says, “Who wrote this shit?” That’s until he gets tossed into a preposterous climax that seems to have lost some key foundational foreplay in the edit. Which may yield a third raison d’être for the movie should Letts and his wife, Carrie Coon, decide to give it a watch one night and enjoy a few cringing belly laughs.

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Release date : Friday, March 18 Cast : Ben Affleck, Ana de Armas, Tracy Letts, Lil Rey Howery, Dash Mihok, Finn Wittrock, Kristen Connolly, Jacob Elordi, Rachel Blanchard Director : Adrian Lyne Screenwriters : Zach Helm, Sam Levinson, based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith

Lyne, once a prime purveyor of glossy titillation pulp like 9½ Weeks , Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal , has been absent since his comparatively classy 2002 entry, Unfaithful . Never a director to say no to a dangerous woman who’s a magnet for trouble, he tackles the 1957 Patricia Highsmith novel that was previously filmed in a 1981 French version titled Eaux Profondes , with Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Louis Trintignant, and then adapted for German television two years later. Lyne’s take on the material, scripted without distinction by Zach Helm and Sam Levinson , manages to drain all the subtlety and psychological complexity from Highsmith’s story of marital warfare, transgression and obsession.

Erotic thrillers are hardly on-brand for Disney, which acquired the New Regency title in the Fox merger. So the film has been gathering dust since its originally scheduled November 2020 release date, shifting twice before eventually being bumped to Hulu for domestic and Amazon internationally. It’s ideal streaming fare since you can check your Twitter feed, do Wordle, go online shopping, hell, probably make a grilled cheese sandwich without much danger of getting left behind by the lethargic plotting.

Affleck plays brooding tech entrepreneur Vic Van Allen, who scowls a lot as he furiously cycles around town like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance , but mostly just looks bored or constipated. That applies even when he’s being humiliated by the flagrant extramarital forays of his wife, Melinda (de Armas), with a string of men, the younger and dumber the better. One of her recent flings, Malcolm McRae, has gone missing, and without even cracking a smile, Vic scares off her new plaything Joel (Brendan C. Miller) by claiming to have killed him.

McRae’s body eventually is discovered in the woods, and while Highsmith’s novel solved that crime and cleared Vic, the screenplay here — or maybe the desperate attempt to inject some suspense in the edit — keeps things murky. So for much of the sluggish two-hour running time you tell yourself, “No, it couldn’t be that obvious,” and then when you realize it is, you wait for a twist that doesn’t come.

Despite Vic’s emasculated pride, and the pitying camaraderie of his best buddies (Lil Rel Howery and Dash Mihok), he remains a pretty creepy guy. Which is not to say menacing. Having retired young after developing a chip used in drone warfare, he skulks around at home or spends time in a hothouse out back fingering the snails he breeds for visually symbolic purposes I don’t even want to contemplate. The clanging symbolism of Melinda chomping into a juicy red apple she just happens to have handy while taunting Vic in the car is at least less icky.

After Joel’s exit, Melinda moves on to a tall drink of water named Charlie De Lisle ( Jacob Elordi ), who plays piano in a cocktail bar, welcoming her to the establishment with “The Lady Is a Tramp.” She becomes more brazen at home, returning still drunk in the mornings from walks-of-no-shame, mocking Vic for being passionless and sneering, “If you were married to anyone else, you’d be so fucking bored you’d kill yourself.”

That should tell us something about Vic’s mysterious nature and the kinky interdependence of the couple, who evidently stick together to avoid a messy divorce. Given that the stigma attached to divorce in the late 1950s, when Highsmith wrote the novel, has long since waned, there must be some other magnetic force keeping them together. But the script doesn’t have the psychological savvy — even the curiosity — to locate it. The closest we get is the very Adrian Lyne notion that jealousy is a fierce turn-on. Not that Vic ever seems even mildly aroused. He’s barely awake.

Still, Charlie gets bumped out of the picture to be followed by the return of Tony Cameron ( Finn Wittrock ), a boyfriend from before Melinda was married. “Tony was the first American I fucked!” she exclaims with glee when he comes to the Van Allens’ house for dinner. Nice ice-breaker. Even before Tony goes missing, Melinda has begun actively accusing Vic of dispatching her conquests, and she’s teamed up with nosy Don to hire the most inept private detective in movie history. And yet, the cops scarcely show any interest in Vic.

A more probing director and writers might have made something of a wealthy white man barely rousing suspicion in the midst of a whole lot of dastardly deeds. But not here. The detective who does briefly question Vic (Jeff Pope) brings up the common knowledge that his wife has been sleeping around but just leaves it there without pursuing the matter further. The lack of coherent logic is as nagging as the complete absence of a sense of place, and despite composer Marco Beltrami’s hard-working strings, tension is also MIA.

While Lyne is the king of deluxe slut-shaming, the majority of the director’s films are better vehicles for his female stars than the men — Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction , Demi Moore in Indecent Proposal , Diane Lane in Unfaithful .

The same applies here to de Armas, who looks sensational in about a thousand variations on the little black dress or pantsuit — usually with a plunging neckline or backless — and has a sleepy sensuality that makes you believe she might be good casting as Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik’s eagerly anticipated Blonde .

But the emerging star was given more range to play in her 10 minutes onscreen in No Time to Die . We know nothing about Melinda’s past except that she has an accent and sings Paolo Conte at a party, so maybe she’s Italian? Her direction seems to consist mainly of “Look hot,” “Dance hot,” “Pout hot,” “Touch yourself.” All we really learn is that she’s a sexpot, to use a term as dated as the material, who needs to be desired by someone less wooden than Vic in order to feel alive.

There’s no question that Melinda is the most alive character in this moribund thriller, which makes it a drag that the perspective is entirely that of dull old Vic, the human snail.

Full credits

Distributor: Hulu Production companies: New Regency, Keep Your Head, Entertainment 360, Film Rites Cast: Ben Affleck, Ana de Armas, Tracy Letts, Lil Rey Howery, Dash Mihok, Finn Wittrock, Kristen Connolly, Jacob Elordi, Rachel Blanchard, Michael Braun, Jade Fernandez, Grace Jenkins, Brendan C. Miller, Devyn Tyler, Jeff Pope Director: Adrian Lyne Screenwriters: Zach Helm, Sam Levinson, based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith Producers: Arnon Milchan, Guymon Casady, Benjamin Forkner, Anthony Katagas Executive producers: Yariv Milchan, Michael Schaeffer, Natalie Lehmann, Garrett Basch, Philipp Keel, Zev Foreman Director of photography: Eigil Bryld Production designer: Jeannine Oppewall Costume designer: Heidi Bivens Music: Marco Beltrami Editors: Tim Squyres, Andrew Mondshein Casting: Ellen Chenoweth

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‘Deep Water’ Review: Love and Loathing in New Orleans

An unhappy husband raises suspicions when his wife’s lovers begin to disappear.

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

Two decades have passed since Adrian Lyne made “Unfaithful,” maybe his best film, though not his best known. (That would be his 1987 sizzler, “Fatal Attraction.” ) A slickly accomplished purveyor of the erotic thriller, Lyne doesn’t make love stories so much as lust stories — specifically, the way an incorrigible sexual appetite can rip a life apart.

On paper, then, he seems the perfect choice to direct “Deep Water,” an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1957 novel about a dangerously sick suburban marriage. Vic (Ben Affleck) is retired, enjoying his tech-derived fortune by mountain biking and raising snails. (Glistening gastropod close-ups suggest this hobby has some ominous narrative purpose; let me know if you find one.) Vic’s gorgeous wife, Melinda (Ana de Armas) — rarely seen without a glass in one hand and a lover in the other — favors little black dresses that shrug off as easily as her sobriety. Vic might be tortured by her flagrant infidelities, but how can you stay mad at a woman who gets topless just to wash the dishes?

Filmed in New Orleans and soaked in boozy parties where Melinda’s public humiliations of her husband earn the pity of Vic’s friends, “Deep Water” ( a French version was released in 1981) is a ridiculous murder mystery that could have worked much better as a study of sexual masochism. (The marriage has no heat, yet there’s sly relish in Melinda’s cruelty and a psychological puzzle in Vic’s pained stoicism.) Alternatively, had the story been set in the 1950s of Highsmith’s novel, when divorce was more stigmatized and alcohol the favored alternative, Vic’s forbearance — not to mention all those parties — might have made more sense.

As it is, Affleck is left with little to play but a sorry, perpetually glum cuckold. When the movie opens, a previous lover of Melinda’s has mysteriously disappeared. “I killed him,” Vic tells the dimwitted replacement (Brendan C. Miller), and we wonder if he’s capable of joking. And as Melinda’s flings — including a cheesy pianist who woos her by playing “The Lady Is a Tramp” — continue to vanish, a local writer (Tracy Letts) grows suspicious. Even Vic’s 6-year-old daughter (a delightful Grace Jenkins) looks at him askance.

None of this is ever less than preposterous. Though heaven knows I’m grateful for any grown-up movie these days, “Deep Water” is in many ways a baffling return for Lyne, whose advertiser’s eye for the allure of an image is repeatedly undercut by Zach Helm and Sam Levinson’s messy, often mystifying screenplay. Eigil Bryld’s caressing camera is fully up to any task his director sets him, but the movie appears chopped into misaligned chunks and dangling loose ends, its scenes spat out as randomly as bingo balls.

Originally intended for theatrical release, “Deep Water” has landed on Hulu , possibly because of nervousness over its themes. Yet there’s surprisingly little sex, and what there is has none of the vividness and tactility Lyne is known for. Like Vic’s snails, who must be starved before they can be consumed, “Deep Water” feels like a movie that’s had everything of interest well and truly sucked out.

Deep Water Rated R for bored fellatio and passionate murders. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. Watch on Hulu.

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Movie Review: The ‘Mad Max’ saga treads (hard-to-find) water with frustrating ‘Furiosa’

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows a scene from “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Anya Taylor-Joy in a scene from “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Chris Hemsworth in a scene from “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

Chris Hemsworth poses for photographers upon arrival at the UK Premiere of the film ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ in London, Friday, May 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Anya Taylor-Joy poses for photographers upon arrival at the UK Premiere of the film ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ in London, Friday, May 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Alyla Browne poses for photographers upon arrival at the UK Premiere of the film ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ in London, Friday, May 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

From left, Alyla Browne, Tom Burke, Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth pose for photographers upon arrival at the UK Premiere of the film ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ in London, Friday, May 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

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At the beginning of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” we are introduced to a kick-ass woman who rides a horse, then a motorbike, nails a few bad guys with sharpshooting finesse and fights off a mob. But it’s not Furiosa — it’s her mom.

That’s one of the oddities of this latest offering in the Mad Max Cinematic Universe: Creator and director George Miller has taken the coolest role of 2015’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” and built a whole prequel around her yet has her overshadowed by everyone else.

Alyla Browne, Tom Burke, Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

The adult Furiosa — a coiled, clenched Anya Taylor-Joy — only appears after the first hour-mark — we get way too much preteen Furiosa — and she’s meek for another quarter of the film. We, frankly, wanted more. Charlize Theron as Furiosa promised a “Top Gun” swagger yet Taylor-Joy mostly does furious side eye.

What goes into making adult Furiosa is very unpleasant: She endures childhood kidnapping and torture, goes mute, passes herself as a boy, gets traded for gas, works her way up a madman’s hierarchy and only in the final scenes does she have real agency. We do learn how her left hand was maimed and that she was sweet on a guy. But making her mute? In her own movie?

Back are some familiar, scarred faces — Immortan Joe, The People Eater and a legion of half-naked War Boys. The new mega villain is Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus, who has a hunger for human blood sausage and a knack for spectacularly murdering people who Furiosa cares about.

Miller has added pretentious chapter titles like he was making a black-and-white Czech New Wave exposition on existentialism — “The Pole of Inaccessibility” and “The Stowaway” are among the sections — despite also employing a narrator.

By the time Miller is finished, he’s built an epic, gritty history in the Wasteland like “Lord of the Rings” or “Game of Thrones.” But was the point of this franchise a better understanding of the negotiating tactics of untrusty warlords in a hellscape? No: It was rocket-propelled grenades, motorcycles, chains, massive sandstorms and cracked skulls.

The best action sequence happens at the halfway point — not a good omen — with a 15-minute sequence inside, over and under a barreling silver double-tanker War Rig while it is being attacked by motorbikes, buggies and parachuting adversaries. It’s a marvel, truly, but since 2015 we’ve had cooler moments in things like “Mission: Impossible” and “Fast and Furious” so, sorry, mind not blown.

Viewers also spend time whipping through the Citadel, the Bullet Farm and Gas Town but there’s something missing, that unpredictable spark of madness, maybe. Perhaps once you’ve seen an insane guy chained to the outside of a zooming truck playing guitar solos in front of a wall of amps with fire coming out of the headstock, the shock wears off.

Speaking of heavy metal, Hemsworth wears fingerless gloves, a codpiece, leather pants, a sleeveless leather vest and flowing hair, like he was a member of Mötley Crüe circa 1983. He has decided to perform his role in full psychotic camp — licking the tears of a victim, he describes them as “zesty” — and proves it by incorporating a teddy bear into his ensemble. Perhaps he should have his own stand-alone movie because he doesn’t really fit in here as the deranged comedy monster in a film with grim faces and famine.

A large part of the problem here is that young Furiosa is on an epic hero’s quest to go home — like “The Odyssey” or any “John Wick” movie — but we know from “Fury Road” that the Green Place is no more. So “Furiosa” then just becomes a catalogue of crazy stuff that happens to her until it morphs into her cold-blooded quest for revenge. There’s no real risk either because we know Furiosa lives to team up with Tom Hardy in 2015.

It feels like with this fifth Mad Max installment, Miller is trying to add operatic heft and seriousness to what started in 1979 as a fun, rip-roaring smear of nightmarish, post-apocalyptic motor oil. In that case, “Fury Road” was fantastic, but “Furiosa” is just fine.

“Furiosa,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release which hits theaters May 24, is rated R for “sequences of strong violence, and grisly images.” Running time: 148 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Online: https://www.furiosaamadmaxsaga.com

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

Daniel Stern felt 'really bad' for Macaulay Culkin, was 'almost killed' by cocaine onscreen

Sorry Harry, the other half of the Wet Bandits is singing like a canary.

Daniel Stern, who played every Millennial’s favorite bumbling burglar in “ Home Alone ” and its sequel, has chronicled his decades-spanning career in his memoir “Home and Alone,” out now (as of 5/21). Stern’s debut tome will be considered “silver tuna” for fans of the actor, who also starred in “City Slickers,” “Diner” and narrated “ The Wonder Years .”

Stern, 66, writes of struggling with dyslexia and dropping out of high school at 17. When he moved to New York to pursue acting, the Bethesda, Maryland-native slept on a mattress salvaged from a brothel/drug den shoved into a closet that he rented for $70 per month. He relives scuffles with his co-stars Mickey Rourke and Patrick Dempsey and explains why he agreed to “City Slickers II,” which currently has an audience score of 31% on Rotten Tomatoes .

“By the time I finished reading the script, I was having real doubts about whether I should do it,” Stern writes. “Then my agent called and said they would pay me two point one million dollars. I immediately shut off my brain and said yes. What am I, stupid?”

Put your crowbars up and clink to the biggest revelations from “Home and Alone.”

Check out: USA TODAY's weekly Best-selling Booklist

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Being ‘almost killed’ while snorting real cocaine in ‘Honky Tonk Freeway’

Stern remembers while playing a drug dealer on “Honky Tonk Freeway,” that “the main source of entertainment on the set was cocaine.”

“This was 1980, and cocaine was rampant,” Stern writes. “I had never tried it because I could never afford it, but on this movie, everyone was doing it – the director (John Schlesinger), producers, actors, prop guys, drivers – carrying around little vials with tiny spoons attached, filled with white powder, and whiffing it up all day long.”Stern recalls Schlesinger being “abusive,” “working the rare water-skiing white rhino to death. … And he almost killed me too.”

Though the actors used ground B-12 vitamins as cocaine in scenes, Stern says when Schlesinger couldn’t get some fast enough, he handed Stern his personal stash of cocaine.

“At first, I thought, ‘Cool,’” Stern admits, excited about method acting and free drugs. “But I almost didn’t make it home,” because they couldn’t get the filming of the scene right. “We did take after take, each time John getting more pissed, and each time me taking a big whiff of cocaine,” Stern writes. “I finished his first vial, so he gave me his backup. I must have done fifteen hits, one after another, and my heart started racing like it never had before. I didn’t want to die, but I also didn’t want John to yell at me.” After the scene wrapped, Stern says he “smoked a pack of cigarettes and didn’t sleep for two days.”

Why Stern felt ‘really bad’ for Macaulay Culkin amid ‘adult pressure’: ‘He didn’t know how to play tag’

When Stern read John Hughes’ comedy about a family who forgets their child during a holiday trip, it was the first time he’d “read a script that made me laugh so hard that I got stomach cramps.”

Soon Stern would be stomping on Christmas lights made of sugar and being smacked in the face with a foam iron. His gravest injury in real life was a bloody nose, spurred by hitting his schnoz twice on the McCallisters' doggy door.

Stern remembers his young co-star Macaulay Culkin being “as sweet a kid as he appears” in the first film. While shooting the 1992 sequel, “ Home Alone 2: Lost in New York ,” Stern picked Culkin up for a playdate in the park with his own children and felt a pang of sadness.

“He was a sweet kid but had lived a very different life than my kids,” Stern writes of the child actor, now 43. “He didn’t know how to play tag or throw the ball around. He was more of an indoor kid and had a lot of adult pressure on him from show business and parents and such.

“We realized he had formed a friendship with Michael Jackson, because when we picked him up, his hotel room was stacked, literally from wall to wall and ceiling to floor, with toys,” Stern continues. “Every conceivable toy, as if someone went through Toys ‘R’ Us, took one of each, and dropped them in his room. All a gift from Michael Jackson . It made all of us feel really bad for Mac. My kids had experienced a taste of the distortions that fame can bring, but seeing what Mac’s life was like put things in a different perspective.”

Every 'Home Alone' movie definitively ranked for ya filthy animals

Running up a $7,000+ bar tab on ‘nothing personality’ Donald Trump

Before Donald Trump leveraged his reality TV status all the way to the Oval Office, he made a cameo in “Home Alone 2.” At the time of filming, Trump owned New York’s famed Plaza hotel, the backdrop for much of Kevin’s Big Apple mischief.

Stern says when the two met, the future president Trump lacked conversation skills and was “kind of a nothing personality.” Stern writes that he saw Trump again while at the hotel’s bar The Oak Room, with the film’s stuntmen Leon Delaney and Troy Brown.

“Donald spotted us and proclaimed so everyone could hear that he would be picking up the tab at our table,” Stern writes. “We all raised a glass to him in thanks and he left the bar, feeling like the host-with-the-most. We drank until there was no more booze left in that bar. We stayed until four in the morning, closing time in New York, and bought round after round of drinks for the entire bar. To this day, Leon and I dispute how much the final tab was, but it was at least seven thousand dollars. We still feel really good about that.”

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Review: ‘robot dreams’ is more profound than it has any right to be.

Neon via AP This image shows a scene from the animated film “Robot Dreams.”

It’s one of those strange but immutable truths of the movies that a song like Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” can play in roughly a thousand films before a movie about a dog and a robot comes along and blows them all out of the water.

The animated “Robot Dreams” is wordless, so the songs play an outsized influence in conjuring its whimsical and gently existential tone. But Pablo Berger’s “Robot Dreams,” a 1980s New York-set fable about loved ones who come and go, doesn’t just use “September” for a scene or even two. It’s the soundtrack to the friendship between Dog and Robot (yes, those are the protagonists’ names in this disarmingly simple film), and its melody returns in various forms whenever they’re reminded of each other.

To a remarkable degree, “Robot Dreams” has fully imbibed all the melancholy and joy of Earth, Wind & Fire’s disco classic. Just as the song asks “Do you remember?” so too does “Robot Dreams,” a sweetly wistful little movie that, like a good pop song, expresses something profound without wasting a word.

Remembering is also helpful when it comes to the film, itself. I first saw “Robot Dreams” over a year ago at the Cannes Film Festival. Its release comes months after “Robot Dreams” was Oscar nominated for best animated film. But for whatever reason, the film is only arriving in North American theaters this Friday.

It’s an unconventional release pattern for an unconventional film. “Robot Dreams,” adapted from Sara Varon’s 2007 graphic novel, is likewise an all-ages movie in a curious way. It’s very much for kids, but it’s also so mature in its depictions of relationships that older generations may swoon hardest for it.

“Robot Dreams” begins in the East Village where Dog lives a rather lonely life. Before he sits down to eat a microwave dinner, he notices his solitary reflection in the TV screen. An ad, though, sparks Dog to order the Amica 2000. A few days later, a box arrives, Dog assembles its contents and soon a friendly robot is smiling back at him.

Together, they have a grand old time around a New York colorfully rendered with pointillist detail. They jump the subway turnstiles, visit Woolworths and rollerblade in Central Park (with “September” playing on the boombox). But after an outing to Playland (which looks much more like Coney Island), Robot’s enthusiasm gets him into some trouble. After frolicking in the water, he lies down on the beach and later finds he can’t move. This may be a movie about a Dog who rollerblades and a Robot who eats hot dogs, but the scientific reality of rust is one suspense of disbelief too far for “Robot Dreams.”

Despite all of Dog’s efforts, Robot is stuck, and, this being September, the beach is soon closed for the off-season. Much of “Robot Dreams” passes through the seasons while Robot dreamily sleeps through the winter and Dog is forced to go on with his life, and maybe try to meet someone new.

The dreams of each can be surreal; Dog has a bowling alley visit with a snowman who bowls his own head, while Robot imagines a “Wizard of Oz”-like fantasy. But both are consumed by fears of their friend’s abandonment while progressively finding new experiences and friends. New characters enter, with their own New Yorks (kite-flying in the park, rooftop barbeques) and their own soundtracks. “Robot Dreams” movingly turns into a story about moving on while still cherishing the good times you once shared with someone — a valuable lesson to young and old, in friendship and romance.

And even this sense of memory runs deeper in “Robot Dreams” than you might be prepared for. Berger, the Spanish filmmaker whose movies include the 2012 black-and-white silent “Blancanieves,” has filled his movie with countless bits of a bygone past, from Atari to Tab soda. The name Amica 2000 could be a pun for the Amiga 500, the early computer and harbinger of our digital present. Even more dramatic, though, is the way the Twin Towers often loom in the background in a film so connected to the month of September. There, too, is a poignant symbol of companions, friends and family members who vanished, but whose memories still stir within us.

This is, you might be thinking, a lot for a cartoon about a dog and a robot to evoke. And yet “Robot Dreams” does so, beautifully. And it will leave you curiously lifted by the spirit and lyrics of one of the most-played wedding songs of all time: “Only blue talk and love, remember/ The true love we share today.”

“Robot Dreams,” a Neon release, is unrated by the Motion Picture Association but intended for all audiences. Running time: 102 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.

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“Underwater” is the kind of no-nonsense B-movie with an A-list cast that Hollywood used to make more often. It's a lean and mean film that gets you into its action instantly and then doesn’t release the pressure until the ending credits. In an era of increasingly long blockbusters with pretensions of greatness, it’s refreshing to see a tight movie that knows exactly what it needs to do and sets about doing it. Anchored by another impressive performance from Kristen Stewart and really effective cinematography from Bojan Bazelli , “Underwater” absolutely bullies you into liking it. There's no time not to. Some of the midsection succumbs to incoherent effects in which the murky setting overwhelms the ability to actually be able to tell what the heck is going on, but the flaws of the film never linger long enough to, sorry, sink “Underwater.”

Stewart plays Norah, a worker on an underwater research site that’s literally miles below the surface. An annoying opening narration that feels tacked on by a producer during the film's delayed post-production details how time starts to lose all meaning when you’re that far underwater. There’s no light and you sometimes can’t even tell if you’re awake or dreaming. Just about then, while you're still trying to find your seat in the theater, all hell breaks loose. The hull of the rig starts to crack and explode. Norah runs to safety, eventually finding other survivors that include characters played by Vincent Cassel , Mamoudou Athie , John Gallagher Jr., Jessica Henwick , and T.J. Miller. That’s it. It’s six people trying to survive a catastrophe that has killed the hundreds of other people aboard the site. No shots of emergency crews on the surface. No flashbacks. The escape pods have either been used or destroyed. Their only hope is to literally walk a mile along the ocean floor to another site and hope there are pods that work there. Then they discover they’re not alone.

Yes, “Underwater” is half disaster movie and half monster movie, combining two B-movie genres that I’ve always loved. As “Underwater” shifts from something more akin to “ The Poseidon Adventure ” to a submerged riff on “ Alien ,” the transition doesn’t always work but director William Eubank directs his cast to incredibly strong in-the-moment performances that hold it together. We need to believe Norah’s plight, and Stewart sells the immediacy of her waking nightmare, well-assisted by Henwick and Cassel in particular. (On the other hand, Miller’s schtick gets old fast, but that’s the only weak link). The writers tack on a few too many manipulative back stories to try to heighten the emotional stakes, but that’s commonplace in both genres on which “Underwater” is riffing.

It also helps that the producers of “Underwater” tapped the eye of the great Bojan Bazelli to shoot the film. The cinematographer behind “ A Cure for Wellness ” and “ The Ring ” knows how to build tension with a combination of extreme close-ups that put us inside Norah’s helmet while never losing the geography of where these people are fighting against incredible odds. When the movie becomes a full-out monster flick, Bazelli and Eubank could have dialed down the underwater murk a few degrees, but it’s still an effective film visually, the value of which cannot be understated. Most bad B-movies like “Underwater” rely on a steady diet of jump scares and shaky camerawork to disguise their low budgets and lack of visual acuity. What sets this apart is that there’s an artistry to the visuals and captivating sound design. The film is filled with flashing lights of broken or breaking equipment and the din of metal creaking under the pressure of water. It’s all necessary to enhance the tension.

What I think I responded to the most in “Underwater” is its relentlessness. It’s almost real time for at the least first chunk of the movie, and the immediacy of the filmmaking gives it power. "Underwater" discards all that on-the-surface nonsense that worse movies would have forced viewers through, in which we meet the characters and foreshadow weird happenings underwater. There’s no time for that. Don’t show up late. It’s a film that’s about panic, and how unexpected heroes can be made through instinctual response to adversity. That, and underwater monsters.

The final act of “Underwater” will likely divide some people, but I’m a fan of when a B-movie really goes for it, and there are a few beats in this one’s final scenes that are impressively ambitious. My kids are at an age where they’re fascinated by the idea that there could be species so far below the ocean’s surface that we have yet to identify them. When they’re old enough, I’ll show them “Underwater.” Maybe they’ll like B-movies too. 

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Underwater (2020)

Rated PG-13

Kristen Stewart as Norah Price

T. J. Miller as Paul

Vincent Cassel as Le capitaine

Jessica Henwick as Emily

• William Eubank
• Brian Duffield
• Brian Berdan
• Todd E. Miller

Cinematography

• Bojan Bazelli

Original Music Composer

• Brandon Roberts
• Marco Beltrami

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