Alicia I love this movie so much

HeadlinesExotic Boring

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

InformationRap 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.

chaos-rampant 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

kaianmattmckay The premise seems so unlikely that it may raise a few eyebrows, so some early suspension of disbelief is called for. In particular, one has to wonder what state of mind the protagonist must be in, to make some of the decisions she does. But then, "The Deep End" is less about the premise, subsequent events, or plot devices, and more about strength, bonds and love, that are often at their loudest and most poignant when unspoken. This film's message can be found in its quiet spaces, for those who know how to listen. A strong and different type of performance from Tilda Swinton, with perfectly-pitched supporting shows from Goran Visnjic and Jonathan Tucker. Minor characters are fairly two-dimensional, and so hammy that it's verging on camp, but they only serve as vehicles to emphasize traits of the main characters or to convey a certain atmosphere, and this does not overly detract from the message, or from one's enjoyment of the film. Worth a detour.

Chris Smith (RockPortReview) "The Deep End" premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and was a breakthrough role for actress Tilda Swinton. She plays Margaret a fiercely protective mother of three who starts to lose her grip when her gay teen son is caught up in the murder of a night club owner.The story takes place in Tahoe where Margaret is basically a single mother, since her husband works on aircraft carrier in the Atlantic. Beau is her oldest at 17 and has been seeing the much older night club owner Darby. She confront Darby about their relationship at his club called the Deep End and tells him to stay away from Beau and offers him money.Beau looks to be a good kid who always seems to be getting into trouble and making the wrong decisions. He is a boy with an absent father and looks up to sleazy Darby. One night he comes over to visit and they start to argue over his mothers visit and her offer. A fight breaks out and things get out of hand. Early the next morning Margaret finds Darby's dead body washed up on shore with a boat anchor lodged in his chest. She furiously runs around hiding the body and the evidence fearing her son killed him.The next day a man appears at her door, its not the police but it's just as bad. Alek Spera (played by Goran Visnjic, who was on the show ER at the time) and his business partner are con men looking to black mail her with a video tape of Darby and Beau having sex. He wants $50,000 in 24 hours or he sends the tape to the police. Although she tries she can't come up with the cash. The next day when Alek comes to collect Margaret's live in father-in-law had just had a heart attack that moment. He helps give CPR and eventually saves his life. This starts off a very strange and interesting relationship between Alek and Margaret. Alek is the stereotypical con man with a heart of gold. He feels for Margaret's situation and tries to persuade his partner to call of the black mailing. This doesn't fly.This movie is all about Swinton's performance as a mother who will stop at nothing to protect her son, but also showing how lonely and vulnerable she is with her husband gone for long stretches of time. Her strength and determination to protect her family and the lengths she is willing to go are remarkable even though she is not sure of her sons innocence. All while taking care of everyone else and not letting on that something is seriously up. This is a great character study and Tilda is amazing! So check it Out!

robert-temple-1 Tilda Swinton! What a gal! This harrowing and brilliantly filmed tale is a complete tour de force from beginning to end. Why is it that these modest independent films are always ignored for American awards? Swinton's performance is really Oscar material, and so are the writing and direction by the pair Scott McGehee (spelling that surname requires some practice!) and David Siegel. The film is based on a novel by Elizabeth Holding, and whoever chose that as the basis for a movie was very clever. The young Croatian actor Voran Visnjic (pronouncing that is even harder than spelling McGehee, but is apparently 'vish-nyich') was a brilliant choice for the other lead role in this film. The third role is Swinton's gay son, played sensitively and just right by Jonathan Tucker. Rarely has female multi-tasking been better portrayed than in this film, as Swinton carries out a multitude of household chores simultaneously with phone conversations, ironing separate piles of clothes and delivering them to their respective rooms, giving instructions to her children, negotiating her way out of blackmail which threatens to ruin her family, raising money while her husband is away on a battleship in the North Atlantic (he is an absent naval captain), plotting how to save her son from a murder rap, looking after her resident father-in-law, saving him from a heart attack, emptying the garbage, and much else besides. Swinton manages to make herself as unglamourous as possible, in order to simulate a 'normal American wife'. Of course there is no denying that she is one the strangest looking people on earth, a kind of alien in our midst. In certain shots, with the sunlight at a particular angle, the eerie green of her eyes shimmers like something from a sci fi film. Her very weirdness compels our attention, as we see this bizarre creature that she is enacting human roles, as if she were not really from outer space after all, but were 'one of us'. (I say 'us' for all those who really are from this planet.) Her genius is not just acting talent, it is the capacity to cast a spell. So you see, she really is another species, because she bewitches the viewer with some kind of extra-terrestrial magic, so that you become so absorbed you forget where you are. You could almost believe it is a Martian movie and you are on Mars watching it. That would fit. But then 'bang!' you are back to Reno, Nevada, which is all too earthly! There are lots of shots of the beautiful Lake Tahoe, beside which Swinton lives. And into her life comes the young blackmailer from a world of vice played by 'vish-nyich'. He is incredibly sensitive in delineating a 'lost' young man who slowly gains some humanity and reforms his character right before our eyes, a truly magical instance of character transformation, and frankly one of the most extreme examples of 'screen character development' in a mere 96 minutes ever filmed. The fact that 'vish-nyich' makes this convincing is a tribute to his profound acting skills. He has that handsome weak face that reminds one of the young Alain Delon. His thin cheeks even wobble in the same way at moments of stress. He conveys without any dialogue to support it at all his entire life history, how he never had a family, never knew a loving and attentive mother, always had a hard time and decided to become hard in turn, and proves how shallow the roots of all this ruthlessness really are within him. This film is truly a profound one, a masterpiece of film-making by all concerned, and it is a tense nail-biting thriller which has you on the edge of your Martian couch.