The Deep End (2001)

Powerful

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Tilda is superb as always and the one real reason to see this. She colors the space around her with profound tensions. She's like Brando, able to improvise a whole sea of shifting emotions in the space between the outskirts of her character and innermost soul, but whereas Brando struts in that space in capricious absent-mindedness, she surfs on what flows from inside her, letting float inside but balancing on the out.The film needed this same ability to color narrative space.It needed for us to not be in full control of the facts and stumble through what floats inside to color the out. It would have benefited from threading early for example the son's suspicion that she might be having an affair while their father is out at sea instead of inserting it late in the story when we know she's not. It needed for her relationship with the mob guy to be ambiguously defined from afar. It teeters in silly sentimentality shown as it is.Check out Bastards (the Claire Denis film). It's also about a mother being profoundly torn by what she believes she couldn't prevent, also noir about reality becoming cursed and devious because she couldn't face it clearly. But it takes place in that space between eye and inmost soul that Tilda anxiously inhabits here (and gives us the most advanced logic of perception since Lynch). This one just embeds her in a plot of to and from.Noir Meter: 2/4

During the opening credits, I'd noticed that "The Deep End" was adapted from a novel which I'd hoped was going to be done well. Alas directors McGehee and Siegel fail to create a good movie out of it, granted I didn't read the novel. Tilda Swinton single-handedly holds up the weight of an aloof and stilted script which has some glaring misgivings and failures. First and foremost the idiocy of the main character of which the tension gets created is an eye-roller, the dialog of Swinton and actor Goran Visnjic seems robotic, and the dysfunctionality of Swinton's character and her son in communication is poor feeling contrived. The movie's fight scenes are poorly done though editing and scene fades are on the better side. Swinton is tense and stressed out, believably so. Visnjic is stoic though satisfactory. Other actors as family are OK. The direction is mixed, and some scenes work while others seems more wooden or absurd, unfortunately more so towards the end. Mixed to poor - 5.5/10 - not really recommended

The Deep End is directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, both of whom also adapting the screenplay from the novel The Blank Wall written by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding. It stars Tilda Swinton, Goran Visnjic, Jonathan Tucker, Raymond Barry and Josh Lucas. Music is by Peter Nashel and cinematography by Giles Nuttgens.An updated take on Holding's source novel (it had been adapted by Max Ophüls as The Reckless Moment in 1949), The Deep End explores how one reckless decision in life can let the equilibrium of normalcy be invaded by dark forces and deep seated desires. Here we have the magnificent Swinton as Margaret Hall, a mother of three who finds her life spiralling out of control when she tries to keep her eldest son from being found culpable in a murder investigation. With the husband and father constantly away from their beautiful Lake Tahoe home, due to his being in the Armed Forces, Margaret is practically alone and afraid but still fiercely protective, but when blackmail walks in to her world in the shape of handsome Alek 'Al' Spera (Visnjic), there's can open, worms everywhere.What unfolds is a tale full of classic noir staples, yet it's no cliché addled picture. McGehee and Siegel paint a pristine portrait of middle class life, but once tainted by noir it's very unlikely the protagonist will get back to that pristine world. The relationship between Margaret and Al becomes fascinating, their respective impact on each other is the beating heart of The Deep End. It all builds to a finale that has caused some division amongst the people who have seen it, but it strikes the right chords and dangles the right questions in context to the human characteristics that have been played out. Personally I would suggest further viewings are required to really get the most from this piece.Beautifully photographed and scored, there is very little wrong here. Raymond Barry's "head" villain is a little weak, and some of the dialogue is a bit clunky, but really these are small irritants. The Deep End uses no tricks or over theatrics to grab our attention, it asks us to invest and pay attention in the principal players, because then, as the suspense and human psychological smarts come into play, is where the rewards are to be found. 8/10

The Deep End is exactly the kind of drama thriller that was more frequent 10 years ago. Of course, it is from a decade ago, so it makes sense. It's a rather messy, but entertaining and sometimes even unpredictable thriller. I definitely didn't think it would become what it did or end the way it did, and I guess what the filmmakers intended to do with the lead character was different than I would have expected. The last act is full of some overly melodramatic moments, and some lines are full of cheese, but as a whole it's still a very solid film. The biggest reason to see this is for Tilda Swinton, who really gives a great performance here that only strengthens her resume. I think, if anything, the problem is that the film didn't do more with the moral dilemma at the its core and went for a rather surprisingly simple and convenient way out.