Review of The Deep End (2001) by Larry M — 14 Jan 2009

In spite of my well-documented opinion that Tilda Swinton should not have won the Oscar for Michael Clayton, she is undoubtedly a great actress, and she gives one of the best performances of her career in The Deep End.

She plays Margaret Hall, a mother of three who discovers her teenage son Beau (Jonathan Tucker) has been frequenting a gay nightclub, and may be having a relationship with a man named Darby Reese (Josh Lucas, slime personified).

As the movie opens, Margaret is paying a visit to the club to tell Mr. Reese to stay away from her son. Not long after the visit, a drunken Reese shows up at their property and meets Beau in the boathouse, where things take a violent turn.

The next morning Margaret discovers Reese's body, and makes an impulsive decision to dump it in the lake to keep her son from being implicated in a murder investigation. This decision sends her spiralling into an increasingly desperate frenzy of activity, but every move she makes to try to protect her son seems to lead her deeper and deeper into trouble.

Adding fuel to the fire is the arrival of a man named Alek Spera (E.R's Goran Visnjic) who plays Margaret a videotape of her son and Darby Reese in a compromising situation, and threatens to make the tape public unless she pays him $50,000.

Margaret frantically but unsuccessfully tries to raise the money, of which she informs Spera, who in turn informs his partner in crime Carlie Nagel, a wonderfully nasty Raymond J. Barry (Pa Cox in The Dewey Cox Story).

Nagel pressures Spera to do whatever has to be done to get the money, but after spending time with Margaret and getting to know her situation, Spera begins to see himself through her eyes and becomes reluctant to carry out Nagel's orders.

This prompts Nagel to take matters into his own hands, eventually leading to a confrontation between the two blackmailers. What I find especially great about the film is that every single character seems three-dimensional and real, even Nagel, though he's a right bastard.

Even Margaret's two younger children and her father-in-law are given a chance to develop, and they add some nice comic relief to the film. The performances are all top-notch, especially Swinton of course, but Visnjic brings a wonderful bruised vulnerability to the conflicted Alek, and Jonathan Tucker is a tightly-wound ball of teenage angst as the young son trying to come to terms with his own sexuality.

In addition, the beautiful Lake Tahoe locations give the film a very original look and feel. I found the The Deep End to be uncommonly engrossing, even after repeated viewings, and I highly recommend it, certainly for fans of Tilda Swinton, but also for lovers of a thriller that breaks the mold and dares to be different.