COMING ATTRACTIONS

The Ana De Armas and Ben Affleck Movie’s Trailer Is Very Uncomfortable


Ben Affleck staring into Ana de Armas's face in the 'Deep Water' trailer
Courtesy of YouTube

If Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck’s loved ones have any sense, they’ll do whatever it takes to keep the actors from watching the teaser trailer for their upcoming film Deep Water (directed by Adrian Lyne). The minute-long clip that dropped on Monday really is that uncomfortable. It was always going to be, given that the pair’s heavily paparazzi-ed relationship is no more, but Hulu really outdid itself when it chose to forgo a traditional trailer format and excerpt what we hope (for de Armas and Affleck’s sake, anyway) is the most unsettlingly steamy scene in the entire film.

Since de Armas and Affleck mostly let their panting and touching do the talking, here’s Deep Water’s official synopsis: “The film takes us inside the marriage of picture-perfect Vic (Affleck) and Melinda (de Armas) Van Allen to discover the dangerous mind games they play and what happens to the people that get caught up in them,” As is the case with the 1957 Patricia Highsmith novel that it’s based on, Vic allows Melinda to have affairs in an effort to preserve their marriage—an arrangement that predictably fails. “Why are you the only man who wants to stay with me?,” the latter asks the former at what appears to be a picnic. When Vic claims not to know, she presses him: “But you do.” Once he admits that he does, the camera pans to their waists. We can’t see much at all, but Vic’s breathing patterns make sure there’s no mistake where Melinda has started touching him.

Melinda continues to quiz her husband, next asking “Do you love me?” (“Of course”) and “You’re not bored?” (“No”). Vic is less direct when it comes to her final query, “Is there something wrong with me?”: “There’s something wrong with me too.” The teaser flashes the sentence, “The love story is never the whole story,” and that’s that. Suffice it to say it’s quite the intense 60 seconds. “Damn it's not even noon yet, Hulu,” one Twitter user quipped.

We have questions, and there’s no doubt which is the most pressing: Will there be a press tour? It’s a bit too early too tell; after no less than four delays, the film drops on Hulu on March 18. (It was originally set for November of 2020, when Affleck and de Armas were still in the heat of their PDA-heavy nearly year-long relationship.) If the pair has any luck, they’ll join the stars of Death on the Nile—arguably the most cursed movie of the decade—in forgoing some very awkward red carpets and interviews. And if they don’t, at least they’ll have their new partners—Tinder exec Paul Boukadakis in the case of de Armas, and no longer former flame Jennifer Lopez in the case of Affleck—for moral support.