The Deep End

source: The Deep End

Who came up with the summary, "spirals out of control"? Margaret, is, if anything, too much in control! One waits throughout the movie for her control to break. Who put her in charge of her son's destiny? Why is she willing, even at the moment she "speaks the truth" in all but this one respect, to specify HERSELF as the one responsible for her son's lover's death? She'll do anything to help him go on to college as a music major, but she won't be able to shield him always from the consequences of his own bad judgment. And perhaps her horrified expression as she watches the video reflects this realization as much as it does her visceral horror at the activity taking place. He is the one who is "spiraling out of control"--HER control. She is trying, presumably at her husband's behest before he shipped out, to make & keep the world safe for her family. But their domestic tranquility is built on a foundation of corruption--that of nearby Reno & its gambling enterprises & related criminal activities. Perhaps at the end when she breaks down & weeps, she is finally letting go of her "sense of control," along with her innocence, which has been compromised much more deeply than that of her son.

There's much to recommend about this film, but it's hard to focus on anything other than Tilda Swinton's magnificent strength-in-sublety performance. She should have at least TIED with Halle Berry for the 2001 Oscar, let alone not be nominated. No more supporting roles for this leading lady. Obviously, even if her character had a copy of that "Worst Case Scenario" handbook, I don't think she'd have found a chapter dealingwith this! Goran Visjnic gives an appealingly nuanced performance, even better than his breakthrough role in "Welcome to Sarajevo". The young man playing Margaret's son shows much promise as well. The other elements of the film, cinematography, lighting, setting, editing, work so well, you don;t notice them (except maybe the lush cinematography), you're that caught up in the story. The music, reminiscent of a ticking clock, works perfectly. It's a reworking of a drama based on a pulp novel from the 'forties, and writers/directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee have done a great job adapting it.

Rarely does one come along a pile of you know what as deep as this. Just how gullible does this writer think one audience can be? One of the most contrived, convoluted plots around. It's all pretty ridiculous and laughable and a classic film for making fun of as you watch. My friend and I were on a roll by the time we got to the last half hour and really enjoyed some good laughs. From a woman who makes some pretty stupid decisions in her obsession to protect her son to her totally oblivious family to developing a crush on the man who is trying to blackmail her for 50,000 dollars, yes, this is the deep end of suspending disbelief in film. Hey, maybe this is some kind of offbeat black comedy; if so, then it deserves the highest rating.

A friend recommended this film to me stating it was the best film he'd seen this year. I am completely dumbfounded at the notion that he, other people at imdb, and several film critics have actually confused this quite possibly one of the worst written, acted, directed, edited, and overscored theme music to cover up the lack of any true emotion or suspense films ever made. I love indie films, but The Deep End is a harsh reminder as to how awful a film can be. Many of the reviews here have summed up why this film is such an abomination. I do have to give kudos to the cinematography, opening title sequence, and sound work, but the film was such a train wreck by the end with its horrendous script, acting and direction colliding, I found myself laughing harder than any comedy I've seen in recent memory. P.s. - I can't wait for the DVD to hear how the film makers explain what a struggle it was to make such a bad film.

This is one of the more realistic films I've seen recently. I don't know that a mother would actually go that far if she truly believed her son had killed someone, but then again, as a mother I have to wonder "how far would I go?". But the realism is enough to hold your attention, even without the surprises, action and twists we've become so accustomed to from most Hollywood movies. The acting in this movie is wonderful, and so much of it is done without words. I particularly liked the way it ended, with so many misconceptions and unanswered questions for the characters. It seemed much more real that the usual ending tying up all loose ends, because in reality life is full of loose ends.

This film was populated with uni-dimensional characters that I didn't care about one way or another. The most emotional range shown by the protagonist was at the end when tears were shed. Big woo. Facial appearance, body posture, vocal inflection ... all were flat. Things went from bad to worse to tragic with no visible change in her demeanor. This was an apparent attempt to be a quirky Coen Brothers style film; it was an abysmal failure. It was a fairly good story, but excruciatingly executed.

Spoilers herein. I'm becoming interested in Tilda Swinton, now that I have seen her in several experimental roles. She has a focus that charms. It is not the kind of acting that I value most - what I look for is folded acting where several layers are simultaneously presented: Brando, Sean Penn, PS Hoffman, Julianne Moore, Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchette. Tilda is of a different class, Nicholson, Streep... Those who project less by annotation than projection. An ordinary actor works with just a few tricks and parts of their body. Tilda's approach is to inhabit a smaller self inside and project onto the back of her face. The concentration must be extraordinary - in some of her projects (`Orlando,' `Ada') she stares right at the camera and clearly right at us. A noir film could only be made in a small period which is now long gone, so when one is remade, it needs to have some distance - just the sort of thing Tilda can do. The original was smack in the middle of noir notions: a grinding, capricious fate that bobbles characters about. This one needed to have a different center, one where a character can create her own fate to some extent. Its a risk and even in the best case bears little reward. But it is interesting to see that the people behind this project understood what Tilda could do, and supported her in doing it. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

THE DEEP END / (2001) *** (out of four) By Blake French: Lake Tahoe, the tenth deepest lake in the world, is a long, cold body of clear, turquoise water thriving at 6,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. Isolated by snow-covered mountain tops, ponderosa pines, and upper class wood homes, this is the perfect backdrop for The Deep End. The Deep End captures some of this harrowing atmosphere, but I wanted even more. The photography, by Giles Nuttgens, won the coveted Best Cinematography Award at the Sundance Film Festival this year for its unflinching look at images of Lake Tahoe awash in moral tensions. The camera cuts through aquariums, dripping water faucets, bursting water bottles, and of course, across and beneath the lake's surface. On a photographic level, this is one great movie. Writers/directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel found their inspiration for The Deep End from the little known 1940's novel The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding. The Ladies Home Journal first published an abridged version of the story. It became so popular that the writer eventually made it into a novel. According to the film's press notes, even Alfred Hitchcook was impressed as evident when he chose the book for his classic anthology My Favorites in Suspense-1959. Holding's novel was the only full length feature book of fiction included on that list. McGehee and Siegel previously worked on the independent film Suture. "In their day, stories like these were very subversive because they asked questions about the nature of families, about the limits of communication, and the loneliness of personal sacrifice," says Siegel of Holding's story. "We wanted to bring those same elements in a contemporary setting with characters that would be sympathetic and believable to people today." Holding certainly did have an innate understanding that true suspense emerges not just from violence and mystery, but also from the fabric of everyday life. The Deep End examines a housewife named Margaret (Tilda Swinton) who protects her gay teenage son (Jonathan Tucker) by covering up the death of his lover (Josh Lucas). Did her son kill this person? Someone might know the truth behind this act of violence, but silence has a very high price tag. A very involving introduction and first act suffer after the diabolical murder plot takes a downhill spiral into a different set of events. Alek Spera (Gordan Visnijc), who needs money for his boss (Raymond J. Berry), creates a blackmail scheme. The film goes downhill from here, but the overall product is far from boring. That's largely because of the beautiful performances. Tilda Swinton, seen opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in 1999's The Beach, leads the cast with a powerhouse performance. Swinton paints a vivid, intriguing portrait of domestic serenity, peaceful ordinariness, and motherhood's merciful nature. She can move the audience with utter silence; her eyes exclude intelligence, instinct, and compassion. She completes what the movie leaves unfinished, including her character's adherence to routine and complete loss of moral compass. Gordon Visnjic (Dr. Luka Kovac on "ER.") with his dark, brooding physique, creates a shadowy nature for his character. His motives remain a mystery; we never know why he does what he does. It lets the audience guess-but we do not have much to guess with. The film does not complete his character. He's one of the most interesting characters here, but Visnjic needs more to chew on. The filmmakers comment about the hidden romantic feelings between Margaret and Alek. "It's the kind of romance I miss in movies. It's not explicit and it is not necessarily even realized, but it is there in a haunting, melancholic way," says Visnjic. Where? We never really grasp these potentially fascinating plot points because the movie never examines these emotions. This is the kind of material that would have taken The Deep End to another level of interest.

SPOILERS Spoilers sure, but what's to spoil? The critics, no doubt parched for anything resembling a movie of substance these days, have collectively gone off the deep end, hook line and sinker, for this piece of unmitigated garbage. This is surely among the worst "serious" movies ever made, marred at every turn by inexplicable emotional reactions, ludicrous plot turns, bad acting, and bafflingly amateurish ineptitude. The plot can be summarized as follows, tongue only slightly in cheek: Kid has preposterous sexual relationship with a disgusting slimy smarmy creep, creep gets in fist fight with kid, during fight creep manages to hurl himself lung first upon an anchor in Lake Tahoe without kid knowing it, super soccer Mom discovers body the next day and calmly totes it in her little power boat out into the middle of Lake Tahoe in order to bury it in 2 feet deep water (soccer Mom has a screw loose), Mom comes back an hour later to do a striptease and dive to get keys out of corpse's pocket, handsome stranger comes to blackmail Mom, Mom irons sheets drops kids off at tennis and runs around trying to raise $50,000 to pay blackmail, Mom never has more than a 2 second conversation with son, son is an uncommunicative jerk who seemingly has no relationship at all with Mom, Mom hocks jewelry, irritating sit-com father-in-law has a heart attack, handsome stranger performs CPR, handsome stranger looks at family picture while Mom is at hospital and falls in love with her, Mom joins traveling Mariachi band and travels naked throughout Portugal to raise cash, handsome stranger gets in fight with partner in crime and kills him, then dies in car crash in his get-away car, Mom frantically discovers this and smears her love all over his bloody forehead, kid watches the whole thing bemused, and they all live happily ever after. Sounds like a classic, eh? This compelling and organic plot line had a significant portion of the audience in giggling fits throughout. Some of the dialog is so lame, you can't wait for more of the characters to find some absurd way to off themselves, perhaps wishing you could do the same to whoever talked you into seeing this disgusting and degrading trash.