Product Details

• Actors: Raymond J. Barry, Franco Delgado, Peter Donat, Jordon Dorrance, Kip Ellwood
• Directors: David Siegel (III)
• Format: Color, Original recording reissued, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• VHS Release Date: August 20, 2002
• Run Time: 101 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (87 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000068TTJ
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #78,303 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Vintage film noir gets a confidently stylish upgrade in this subtle domestic thriller, intensified by Tilda Swinton's acclaimed performance as a mother who risks everything to protect her family. Adapted from Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's story The Blank Wall (previously filmed as 1949's The Reckless Moment), the film's gripping plot commences with Margaret (Swinton), a naval officer's wife and mother of three, disposing of the body of a sleazy club owner, who died in an accident after a confrontation with Margaret's closeted gay son. Maternal instinct shifts into high gear when a blackmailer (Goran Visnjic) demands $50,000 to withhold incriminating evidence, and his unspoken feelings provoke an unexpectedly compassionate alliance. Compelling plot twists aside, The Deep End gains much of its impact from the quiet desperation of a family defined by its secrets and rescued by the mysterious motivations of the human heart. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker

A heartfelt and beautifully made neo-noir thriller that takes its moods and colors from the turquoise blue of Lake Tahoe. A mother of three, Margaret (Tilda Swinton), discovers a dead body outside her family's lakeside home one morning. It is her teen-age son's gay lover, a Reno club owner and lowlife, and Margaret sets about disposing of the corpse as if it were a particularly cumbersome household nuisance. This domestic heroine gets drawn deeper and deeper into secrecy and danger while running around taking her children to their lessons. The movie, which is beautifully shot by Giles Nuttgens, develops rhapsodic and fatalistic moods that hold you even when the story becomes improbable. With Jonathan Tucker as the son with whom Margaret has a largely silent bond, and Goran Visnjic as a sad-eyed, melancholy blackmailer whom she perversely finds attractive. Written, directed, and produced by the team of Scott McGehee and David Siegel. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetic, lush and breath-taking suspense drama, April 25, 2002

By	K. Corn "reviewer" (Indianapolis,, IN United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Deep End (DVD)

A movie I loved so much that I actually stayed on my treadmill till it was over, extending my usual hour-long workout into 2 hours (and I'm paying the price today, ouch!)
From the opening scene to the last credit, you won't be able to tear your eyes from the screen. Tilda Swinton, the star and focus of this film, is perfect in the role of a woman trying to protect her family from tragedy while maintaining her daily routine.
A brief summary: Her adolescent son has been piecked up by a manipulative man and then the man tries to blackmail the boy's mother for money. Afterwards, he dies in cirucmstances that make the boy a possible suspect - although he is, in fact, innocent (I'm not giving anything away here; all of this is revealed early on in the movie).
Swinton is calmly focused (most of the time), single-mindedly determined in her quest to hold everything together in the face of nearly insurmountable odds. She is equally determined to make sure her family - son, 2 daughter, elderly father-in-law - aren't aware of what is going on, of the tragedy that took place within minutes of their front doorstep. Meanwhile, her life is changing but not in ways she could have foreseen. In spite of her best efforts, she can't control everything.
Watching Swinton juggle all her everyday duties (cooking, cleaning, keeping the kids organized and on time for school and after school activities) while dealing with the burden of hiding a body, covering up the evidence and keeping everyone in the dark, I couldn't help marveling at her apparent selflessness in the face of so much and at her incredible ability to fool those around her.
This movie is one of the best of the year. Don't be so swept up by the story,however, that you miss the visual details that are breath-takingly poetic in beauty and intensity. The lingering shots of Swinton's face, the color of the water, the way a drop falling from the kitchen faucet (framing a face in the drop) can punctuate the mood of the moment.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intense, enveloping, gorgeous, August 26, 2001

By	Chel Micheline "gingerblue.com" (SW Florida) - See all my reviews

I saw the movie "The Deep End" yesterday and it was just stunning- probably one of the most beautiful, perfect films I have seen. It was intense, tragic, and provocative. The whole film takes place around water, and the colors of the film seems bathed in blue. I just can't describe how much I loved everything about it- the characters, the scenery, the pacing...

Tilda Swinton, who played the main character in this movie, was breathtaking. I haven't been as inspired by a performance since I saw Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth", and those of you who have known me for a while understand just how blown away I was by Swinton. Why isn't she in a million films?!

I'm reading a lot of personal reviews on the internet and it seems like most people don't agree with my glowing review of "The Deep End", which is a shame. Even thought the critics tended to really like it, more films like it won't be made unless the audience responds well. I guess it requires some patience to watch, although to me the film just flew by. You are required to believe in the character's desperation and love for her child, which is what drives the movie. I can't believe people this film isn't resonating more with people who have children. I don't, but I could actually feel the fierce nature of a mother's - and the fact she would do *anything* to protect her child from harm.

If you have a chance, go see it. Even with all that is going on in my life, I was enveloped in this movie. I just lost track of everything else and just got absorbed in it- the colors, the sounds, the emotions, the intensity.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Mom's Gotta Do What a Mom's Gotta do, August 17, 2001

By	MICHAEL ACUNA (Southern California United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If someone had asked me who I thought should play the mother-in-peril role of Margaret Hall in "The Deep End" I would not have listed Tilda Swinton who heretofore has made a career of playing far-out characters as in "Orlando" in which she played both a man and a woman whose lives evolve over the course of several hundred years. Be thankful I wasn't asked, for Tilda Swinton gives the performance of her lifetime in this film directed by the duo of David Seigel and Scott McGehee. Set in the Lake Tahoe/Reno area, the plot of "Deep End" is straight out of film noir and as such usually doesn't allow for much in the way of delving into a characters personality or psychology. All the chracters in a film noir are archetypes: cool blond Grace Kelly in "Dial M for Murder" or Robert Mitchum as the tough, hard-drinking detective in "D.O.A." Seigel/McGehee use the film noir tradition as a jumping off point and layer on the shadings and angles that can make a movie character "pop" as personified in the Alek Spera role played with an uncanny combination of danger, empathy and sympathy by Goran Visnjic (T.V.'s "ER"). Visnjic is a revelation is this role. Notice how with just a slight eye or face movement he can transmit a multitude of emotions. Great film actors use their faces to tell their stories. Spera approaches Hall the first time to blackmail her for $50,000 over a sex tape that his boss, Carlie Nagel has in his possession. Smudging the bad guy/blackmailer image to the hilt, Spera quickly becomes attached to Hall and her family with surprising results that I will not reveal here. What does transpire is that Visnjic and Swinton are such multi-faceted and complex characters involved in a many layered situation that you can't help but be fascinated by the whole enterprise. If I had to make one small gripe it would be about the character of Darby Reese, a bar owner played by Josh Lucas. This guy is strictly out of the Simon Legree mold of villian what with his pencil mustache and toothy sneer. It's as if he belongs in another movie altogether. But this is a minor mis-step in what is a terrific movie. Bravo to all involved.