The Deep End

Rating:
Summary: A Fine Movie with an Excellent Tilda Swinton
Review: The family is more or less all-American, the house is on the shores of Lake Tahoe, the father is a senior naval officer away on duty but back soon, the mother is coping silently, maybe a little unhappily. She has three kids. The eldest is 17 years old, a teenager who is trying to come to grips with his homosexuality. He's been running with an older, sleezy opportunist. The mother discovers this and tries to break things up. This leads to a fight, a death which could be murder, the discovery that her son is gay, blackmail and a resolution that works.

The movie, in my opinion, is first rate. It's well-acted, the son's sexuality isn't dwelled upon and is treated matter-of-factly, and the story is full of nuances. Tilda Swinton plays the mother, and the story is about her absolute determination to protect her children, especially her son. She takes steps she thinks are best, or at least best of the choices she has, and they have consequences that are seldom tidy or expected. The relationship that developes between her and one of the blackmailers is tentative and even believeable. This is a movie, I think, that benefits from being watched more than once.

Swinton does a magnificent job. She's one of these actresses who doesn't get anywhere near the recognition she deserves.

The DVD transfer is excellent.

Rating:
Summary: Good movie without many twists
Review: The film production quality was good and the audio was good. The acting was mostly good but had momments that got over the top and lost believability. Story was simple really, the mother is trying to protect her son from a bad man who then gives way to an unexpected turn of events that are worst than the first. With everything going on she is also trying to keep the situation from the boys father who is away and would not accept the boy being gay.
The boy actually is not the focal piont of of the film. The entire story is really about the Mother and what she is willing to do to protect the life they have. It was a good movie and worthy of four stars. It has only one short intimate scene and the rest is fairly clean. Still best for those over 18 and open minded folks, may offend conservitive thinkers but not badly.

Rating:
Summary: Blackmail, death, and sex invade a family
Review: This fine film has many stories - one might be the story of individualism versus society where the former is represented by two blackmailing men out to make a dollar and the latter represented by a woman and her three children and absent Navy husband maintaining a family. But the strongest and most interesting one to me centres on the journey the handsome character played by Goran Visjnic makes from criminal to something of a rdeeming figure when he cannot effectively carry through the task assigned to him by his partner in the blackmailing strategy they have devised. With an excellent music score, strong design characteristics, fine acting by all concerned, this is a very fine film indeed worthy reviewing from time to time.

Rating:
Summary: Everyone Is In The Deep End Here!!!
Review: I just recently watched The Deep End and I will say that It was time well spent as well as a piece of fine art. I saw Tilda Swinton in Love Is The Devil and The War Zone and I thoght her acting was great in those movies, however I will say that she does even better in this movie. I have seen Goran Visnjic in the TV series, ER playing a role of one of the doctors and I was surprised to see him in The Deep End meaning that I was completely unaware that he has done a movie project. It was a nice surprise to see him in this movie. I think both of them acted well together in thier roles.

This story is set in Nevada and the scenery is very beautiful. I will also say that the theme, settings, plot and dialogue are excellent in this movie. This movie holds the viewer's attention and the emotions run very high in this movie. One can call this a drama as well as a thriller. There are twists and turns in this movie. I will say this is a definite edge-of-the-seat movie.

Tilda Swinton plays an ordinary, innocent and devoted housewife, Margaret, who is also a very loving Mom will do anything to protect her children no matter what. She lives in a nice comfortable house with her children and father-in-law. Margaret's husband spends a lot of time out of town because of his job. Her house is located next to a lake. Margaret's world is ideal except for one fact, someone in her family has a skeleton in their closet that cannot be revealed at any cost. If this secret is exposed to the certain party, lives can be ruined permanently. Margaret does everything to cover up the skeletons in the closet and the plan works perfectly and the cover up is perfect. She now thinks she can breathe until a shady blackmailer, Alek (Goran Visnjic) from Las Vegas shows up at her house showing concrete proof that he knows her deep dark family secret. He demands an exorbitant sum of cash to keep him from showing his evidence to anyone who this matter would be of concern to. Alek is aware that she will not be able to come up with this amount of cash in such a short time, however he will not relent inspite of her begging and pleading. Margaret tries every legal method to get the money as well as liquidating some of her accounts, however she is on a very strict time limit and she has no luck coming close to the sum of money that has been demanded. Meantime, Alek is harassing the poor lady for the money and stating that he will go to the source that the secret will be useful to. He calls her at all hours and keeps showing up at her house. Nobody is aware of the predicament that Maragaret is in. Alek still won't budge to her pleas. He loves to play the casinoes in Las Vegas and hangs around a crowd of hard core criminals who mean business. The surprises keep coming in the story and the plot keeps thickening. I will not reveal anymore about the actual story in the movie, because I think one needs to watch it to see what happens.

I want to say that both of the main stars in the movie do an excellent job in this movie. Tilda Swinton and Goran Visnjic both mold into their roles very well. Both of them are very convincing in the roles that they play. They actually become their characters in this movie. In Tilsa Swinton's role, the viewer likes Margaret very much and feels sorry for her as well. Goran Visnjic will scare you to a million pieces with his role as a ruthless blackmailer with the mastermind. It is a surprise to see Mr. Visnjic make a transition from a role as a hard working doctor who makes charitable trips to Africa to a role of a potentially dangerous Las Vegas hoodlum. I feel Tilda Swinton and Goran Visnjic shoud have won Oscars for The Deep End. I am glad the movie industry discovered both of these talented stars as I have not seen such fine film acting for several years. I wish I could personally reward both Tida Swinton and Goran Visnjic. I hope to see them in more movies, even if they are not starring together. I just don't know when they are in the movies.

I highly recommend this movie and I will say it is good entertainment as well as a movie that should become a classic as time goes on.

Rating:
Summary: Not a total waste, but not a total winner either.
Review: This film is a good example of justice being served. The baddies gets it by the end of the movie, and that's the main redeeming value. There are however, several flaws in the plot, including why the mother didn't just call the cops in the first place. We assume that it is because she wants to protect her son from murder charges, but with the broken railing and cause and time of death, the investigation should obviously yield the truth of what had happened. If she thought her son had actually murdered the victim, *why* didn't she even mention it to him?

Again, not a total waste of time, but not a real winner either.