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'Deep End' is deeply satisfying
Exquisite acting, rich cinematography and score, a dramatic plot: This movie brings unexpected, but welcome, chills to summer's dog days.
By PHILIP BOOTH
© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 23, 2001
[Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures]
Tilda Swinton plays a mother who finds herself in the midst of a murder in The Deep End.
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Tilda Swinton, the remarkable Scottish actor honored for her tour de force performance in 1992's Orlando, offers another mesmerizing turn in The Deep End as a staunchly determined ubermom. It's just one element in a striking work of surprising smarts and resonance, a newfangled film noir that leaves one unsettled long after the final credits roll.
Swinton, as lonely Lake Tahoe homemaker Margaret Hall, is a model of domestic efficiency as she goes about running a beautiful waterfront residence in a woodsy neighborhood, keeping three kids in line while her naval officer husband is away, incommunicado somewhere in the South Pacific. Routine chores -- washing clothes, driving her daughter to dance class -- soon give way to another task: covering up a bloody murder. The fiercely protective Margaret goes about the grim details matter-of-factly, as if it were the least she could do to shield her family from malevolent forces.
Her calm -- as she quickly disposes of a corpse and clears away evidence -- gives way to desperation, and the nagging feeling that her best intentions may not be enough. It's fascinating watching Swinton's character reveal steely resolve, which ultimately turns into emotional vulnerability, as she copes with the trauma of a wicked threat involving sex, lies, videotape and a big wad of cash.
Scott McGehee and David Siegel, the filmmakers who shared writing and directing duties on The Deep End, made a splash with their debut feature, 1993's Suture, a postmodern crime picture built on a one-note gimmick. They really plumb the emotional depths, if you will, for their sophomore effort, a sophisticated melodrama adapted from the same forgotten 1940s novel, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's The Blank Wall, that spawned Max Ophuls' 1949 film The Reckless Moment.
A relationship between an underage girl and an older man constituted the forbidden affair in the Ophuls movie. McGehee and Siegel forgo the Lolita angle in favor of what might be thought of as a contemporary twist. Darby Reese (Josh Lucas), the manipulative, seductive owner of a Reno nightclub, is having an intimate relationship with Margaret's 17-year-old son, Beau. The two tussle in the boathouse and on the dock, and disaster ensues.
Jonathan Tucker (The Virgin Suicides) is affecting as the troubled teenager at the center of the intrigue, a musically talented kid caught up in an affair he seems unable to end. Goran Visnjic of television's ER strikes the right notes, too, as a foreign-born blackmailer, a tough guy with a conscience.
The Deep End is an entirely satisfying thriller, bolstered by blue-chip acting, Giles Nuttgens' moody cinematography and a haunting score by Peter Nashel. The film is a late-summer surprise; just when you thought it wasn't safe to return to the theaters until the fall slate of "serious" movies, along comes this creepy delight.
The Deep End
- Grade: A
- Directors: Scott McGehee and David Siegel
- Cast: Tilda Swinton, Goran Visnjic, Jonathan Tucker, Peter Donat, Josh Lucas
- Screenplay: Scott McGehee and David Siegel
- Rating: R; profanity, adult themes, explicit sexuality
- Running time: 99 min.
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