Deep Water Perfectly Reverses Ben Affleck’s Gone Girl Role

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Deep Water!

Ben Affleck’s second psychological thriller, Deep Water, brilliantly reverses the circumstances of his character in David Fincher’s Gone Girl. Deep Water’s erotic thriller tells the story of the manipulative marriage of Vic (Affleck) and Melinda Van Allen, who play increasingly dangerous mind-games with one another as Vic attempts to keep his family together. Unsurprisingly, the underlying premise of 2022’s Deep Water has been frequently compared to the Ben Affleck-starring 2014 film Gone Girl, which similarly depicted the twisted marriage of Nick and Amy Dunne.

While David Fincher initially cast Ben Affleck in Gone Girl because of his often awkward public smile, the role ended up being perfect for Affleck in playing the apathetic husband of a wife who mysteriously goes missing. Gone Girl’s twists reveal that Amy initially framed Nick for her murder, even working to expose his affair with one of his students. By the end of the film, Amy decides she wants to keep her family with Ben Affleck’s Gone Girl character together, revealing herself to be alive and pregnant, with the couple reluctantly cementing their manipulative marriage in Gone Girl’s final scene.

In both Gone Girl and Deep Water, Ben Affleck’s character is caught in a lethal game of cat-and-mouse with his wife, with each film kicking off as audiences guess whether he’s actually a murderer. However, there’s a major difference between Ben Affleck’s roles in Gone Girl and Deep Water in that he proves to actually be the more twisted character in the latter. In Gone Girl, Nick never actually murdered anyone, with his wife playing vengeful games after both became bored in their marriage and she discovered Nick’s long-term affair. In Deep Water, the snail-obsessed Vic appears to be indifferent to his wife’s affairs on the surface, but soon snaps and begins to murder them in a jealous rage. While Ben Affleck’s character is desperate to keep his family together in Deep Water, it was Rosamund Pike’s character in Gone Girl who was manipulating Affleck into staying married. This narrative change not only subverts audience expectations after Gone Girl, but also provides a dark mirror for all the major characters in each movie.

Although Deep Water and Gone Girl both end with the lethal mind-games making the marriages of Affleck’s characters stronger, his roles are arguably reversed in terms of who is the more dangerous character in the marriage. While they’re very different figures, Gone Girl’s Nick Dunne more closely aligns with Melinda Van Allen’s role in Deep Water, which is particularly demonstrated in the final twists of each film. Nick was ready to turn in Amy for her crimes in Gone Girl up until she revealed herself to be pregnant, which he explained as the reason he chose to stay married to her – even though Nick may have secretly ended up enjoying the madness. In Deep Water, Melinda was prepared to turn in Vic for his crimes until she saw their daughter trying to protect their family’s unity – though Melinda secretly enjoyed the mind games as well.

Both of Ben Affleck’s psychological thrillers saw a passionless, boring marriage turn into a series of murderous mind games that ended in the tumultuous couple choosing to stay together. Additionally, there’s a twist in which both movies keep audiences guessing whether his character is a murderer or not, but only Deep Water‘s ending proves that he’s the homicidal husband Gone Girl’s first act painted Affleck’s character to be. Because Gone Girl proved that Nick wasn’t actually a murderer after being framed, Deep Water viewers may have initially suspected that the same twist reveal of his innocence was going to occur. Instead, Deep Water sees Ben Affleck’s character take on a fully sadistic turn that would make Amy Dunne proud. Since Gone Girl’s author cites Deep Water’s 1957 book as one of her favorites, it’s no surprise that there are so many similarities in their stories, or that Ben Affleck fits so well playing both apathetic husbands.

About The Author

Jordan Williams
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Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies.

Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.

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