Nov 17, 2023 (dmtalkies.com) - There is something that is mildly jarring about the storytelling of In Love and Deep Water. A lot of the plots are rather unexplained, and the love story doesn’t make a lot of sense amidst the mystery and the character’s personal problems.
A good chunk of this review will be questions regarding the plot holes because of the sense of incompleteness that the audience is left with at the end of the film.
Let’s talk about the love story of Chizuru and Ubukata first. Ubukata delivered a beautiful line, the ‘almost’ one, and it was easily the unintentional highlight of the film, but while the couple had sufficient chemistry, essential chunks of their story were missing. First of all, we were never given an explanation as to why Ubukata was the way he was. Was there some particular trauma of past experience, or was there some particular philosophy that made him so willing to be a ‘lightning rod’? He did not have a problem being assertive but was simply choosing not to be, and such a quality demands an explanation. Next was Chizuru, and the audience was never told anything about her. Who was she outside of her relationship with her cheating ex and the man she was currently falling for? Why was she able to connect with Ubukata so quickly that she was able to make a conclusive decision to give him a chance over the man she had been with for much longer? This was especially upsetting to us because, as said before, the actors had chemistry. They had the tension that convinced the audience that these two were capable of falling in love. Yet, the writing failed them. Also, it is important to remember that both of them just discovered their partners’ cheating. Why was it so easy for them both to move on to another person in less than a matter of days? It would have made more sense if they had been shown as reconnecting after a few months of the cruise. ...continue reading
