In Love and Deep Water Review: Aboard a cruise ship, Ryo Yoshizawa, Aoi Miyazaki, Yo Yoshida, Rinko Kikuchi, Kento Nagayama, Yuki Izumisawa, Aju Makita, and others are at the centre of a romantic-comedy mystery plot. The Japanese movie, originally titled, クレイジークルーズ (Kureiji Kuruzu), has been directed by Yusuke Taki and written by Yuji Sakamoto. Releasing on Netflix on November 16, 2023, it has a runtime of 127 minutes, and is also available to watch with English dubbed audio and subtitles, and other languages for international audiences.
The Yusuke Taki directorial crosses the wires between romance, mystery and whatnot, when disorder erupts on a luxury cruise liner all set for the Aegean Sea. A butler and an unexpected passenger join forces to solve an “electrifying” and confounding murder mystery.
In Love and Deep Water Netflix Review Contains No Spoilers
In Love and Deep Water Review
Commencing with an insightful allusion to Sirens from the Greek Mythology, the Japanese movie makes a promising start. The beginning makes you raise your eyebrows and dive into speculative thought about how darkly chaotic this movie’s plot could go. With the premise of a murder mystery atop a cruise ship, In Love and Deep Water instantly makes you count on it being as topsy-turvy and fun as Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler’s Netflix movie, Murder Mystery.
Unfortunately, as the plot progresses, you’re only faced with the dismaying thought that this is no Murder Mystery at all. Plus, the attention-grabbing ploy of roping in Greek Mythology was a mere ruse to initially keep you seated for a rather slow-moving film that ends up making its secondary sub-plots its main show, while relegating the main attraction to the sidelines.
Pushing back all sense of a cruise mystery to the end of the movie, the 2 hour-long film stretches beyond the good extent of elasticity. It drags out unnecessary drama and falls back to focus on a romantic track that, though may have seemed cute and heartwarming for a second, ends up hoarding a humongous amount of time screen and distracts us, and also the director as it seems, from the enjoyable essence of the mystery-driven plot.
In a movie that’s supposed to be centred around the murder of a passenger onboard, In Love and Deep Water‘s Netflix plot almost entirely renounces its messy conundrum. Even with a bare 2-hour long duration, it feels as if the movie is moving ahead too slowly and is never going to end.
Ryo Yoshizawa and Aoi Miyazaki’s sweet chemistry ends up working as a distraction that takes a lot away, and because of that you’re bound to end up sensing that the film isn’t even trying to pose as a thrilling whodunit. The leading pair’s characters are also too hollow. Much like other such films, herein too, they firmly stay loyal to their preoccupied characteristics, but in the end, it only ends up churning out a one-dimensional picture of predictability. Despite their initial connection and agreement over respective mutual romantic heartbreaks, their developing bond barely stands out as a slow-burn growth, and only comes in to fill the other lacking voids of the movie.
It doesn’t matter if the movie otherwise pulls in visually aesthetic colours and cinematography, when the plot itself is lacking. Despite touching upon some stereotypical tropes relied on for making mysteries like this work, the “crazy cruise” bunch fails to make a compelling impact. And putting the rotten cherry on top, the final resolution of the so-called mystery is yet another bummer.
In Love and Deep Water Movie: Final Thoughts
At certain points, it seems as if the movie is trying its all to pull an emotional nerve, but falls flat, much like it does when attempting to pull off comedy. Neither of the themes spelling out the movie’s genres make you want to stay for the ride because of how unexciting the journey is. If anything, watching this film has only aroused the desire to watch the Aniston-Sandler comedy mystery project Murder Mystery again in me to make up for the time that could’ve been spent on reeling out a simply fun, mindlessly enjoyable and feel-good chuckle-worthy whodunit instead.
In Love and Deep Water is now streaming on Netflix.
Also read: Best Christmas Ever Review: A Story of Friendship and Jealousy Amidst an Unfulfilling Plot
ZZZZZZ…zzzzz….*snores*….*wakes up*….0.o….ooooh right rewies…
Lets see the exciting murderstuff and investigation thingy its like 10-20% of the movie,
The rest is just snobby rich, perfect to much rich dress up boring ball stuff….its has its few funny moments like every 25 minutes or so,
Two houers are too loooooooooooong, its also 66% romantic stuff in it,
This made me tired…i may never wake up again, my energi is gone becuse of this one…
My score: 0.5 of 5……..*dies*……..????…⚰️…????…