Mental games, extramarital affairs, jealousy and mystery are some of the premises that surround deep waternovel of Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995)whose film version was recently released in Amazon-Prime, under the direction of adrien lyne and the stellar performance of Ben Affleck and Anne of Arms.
Categorized as a psychological thriller, Deep water (his name in Spanish) introduces into the life of Vic and Melinda Van Allen, a married couple living in a small town. The married life between them is just a facade, because there is not and never was love involved; their union was only product of an economic arrangement. However, his neighbors see them as a stable couple: Vic is shown as a charming man, with money, cultured, understanding and a good father; while Melinda is spontaneous, fun and very sociable.
That is not the only arrangement that determines this couple, because, to avoid the divorce process, Vic allows Melinda to meet other men on the condition that she does not abandon her family.. One day the “perfect husband” makes a bad joke to one of Melinda’s lovers, telling him that he had murdered a man who was getting involved with his wife. This scares the lover, who believes the joke and disappears.
Time after, another of her lovers ends up drowned in a pool. These strange events only raise suspicions in Melinda, who begins to believe that her husband is involved, leaving behind the understanding and turning jealousy into the bomb that makes so many things explode in the story.
It was characteristic of Highsmith’s narrative to peer into the dark side of humans and masking the least conceivable characters as guilty. Anyone can be a killer. In his logic, the greatest crimes are hidden in the hearts of everyday life. Another of his works under this macabre tint is strangers on a trainhis famous novel made into a film in 1951 by Alfred Hitchcock.
In fact, several of his works have been adapted to the cinematographic format for more than one occasion. In the case of Deep water, the first film version was made in 1981 by the director Michael DeVille. After two years it was adapted as a telefilm (in two parts). And the current one, which is directed by Lyne, who in her version has chosen to make some changes.
“I read the novel and loved it. It was the story of a man who was fed up with his wife being unfaithful, but was not really interested in him sexually, and took refuge in her daughter and her obsession with snails. That was something that I changed in the film, I tried to create a kind of complicity between them, as if she had her affairs not only for her, but also for him.”, he maintained in an interview with EFE. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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