The Deep End: Movie Review (2008)

Editor's Note: Here is where I became a fan of Tilda Swinton, in Scott McGehee's 2001 film, "The Deep End," which is a must-see if you haven't seen it. What you note in Swinton's defining performance is all of the intensity you eventually came to see in the actress' more popular films, such as the recent "Burn After Reading," and onward into "Michael Clayton," "Constantine," and "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe." She's one of my favorite actresses. This movie is a good reason why.

Written and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, 99 minutes, rated R.

(Originally published 2001)

In “The Deep End,” Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s riveting, noirish thriller based on Elisabeth Sanxay Holding’s 1947 novel, “The Blank Wall,” and, in turn, Max Ophuls’ 1949 movie, “The Reckless Moment,” a mother’s love for her son is tested and proved in what’s easily one of the best films Hollywood has put out in months.

It features a performance from the Scottish actress Tilda Swinton (“Orlando,” “Edward II,” “The Beach”) that’s so beautifully realized, it will push the relatively unknown actress straight into the American spotlight when the awards season hits later this December and into next year.

In the film, Swinton is Margaret Hall, a Lake Tahoe mother trying her best to balance an uncommonly busy home life, one that includes three self-involved children, an ill father-in-law, a Navy husband who’s never at home--and a corpse that’s recently washed up in front of her lakefront home.

Margaret knows the corpse all too well--it’s Darby Reese (Josh Lucas), the seedy owner of a gay nightclub called The Deep End, who’s been having an affair with her 17-year-old son, Beau (Jonathan Tucker).

Convinced Beau is somehow behind Reese’s death, Margaret launches into action to protect her son. Secretly--and with a soccer-mom’s efficiency--she slings Reese’s body into a boat, drops it into the lake, ditches his car, and hopes that will be the end of it.

Of course, it isn’t. When a dark, dangerous stranger named Alex (Goran Visnjic) threatens her with a salacious videotape of Beau having sex with Reese just as Reese’s body is being hauled out of Tahoe by authorities, it becomes clear that Margaret will have to go to unusual depths of her own to keep the illusion of her family together while privately fighting to keep her son out of trouble.

The result is seductive, rich and atmospheric, a gorgeously shot and acted movie that recalls the best elements of Chandler and Hitchcock.

The twists and turns are unrelenting, but the reason the film resonates so deeply on an emotional level is because of Swinton’s Academy Award-worthy performance; just beneath her cool facade is the worry of every mother’s nightmare--her child and his future are in danger. When Margaret fully realizes this, there is nothing that can stop her from protecting him.

Grade: A