Now available on Blu-ray for the first time is the 2001 film The Deep End. The film stars Tilda Swinton, Josh Lucas, Goran Visnjic and Jonathan Tucker.
Margaret Hall (Swinton) seems to have an ideal life for the most part. She has three children, a husband and a beautiful home on the lake in Tahoe City, California. Unfortunately her husband is a pilot on a naval ship and rarely home. Their relationship is mostly over the phone. Margaret is essentially a single parent, although her father does live with them to help out.
The film starts off with Margaret confronting a man name Darby Reese (Lucas) at his night club called The Deep End. She found out that her 17 year old son, Beau (Tucker), has been having an affair with the 30-year old man. She threatens Darby and demands that he leave her son alone.
Later that night Darby shows up at Margaret’s home (unknown to her) and meets her son Beau in their boathouse. The two end up in an argument and Beau storms off.
As Darby was leaning on a railing it broke causing him to fall into the water and impale himself on a boat anchor. Beau did not see this happen. He was back inside at the time.
The next morning Margaret finds Darby and automatically thinks her son Beau killed him. To protect her son she takes the body and dumps it into another part of the lake. No one knows that she did this – not even Beau.
Margaret worries that the body will be found and traced back to her boathouse and her son Beau.
Soon a man name Alek Spera (Visnjic) confronts Margaret. He tells her that his partner has a tape of Beau and Darby having sex and if Margaret and her husband don’t pay them $50,000 they will turn the tape over to the police which would implicate Beau in Darby’s murder (everyone assumes it was a murder when it was truly an accident).
Unable to reach her husband Margaret has to find a way to come up with $50,000.
Now Margaret’s life is turned upside down. Out of protecting her son she finds herself tied up in a blackmail situation.
Will Margaret come up with the money and rid herself of the blackmailers? Will Beau get implicated in Darby’s death? To find out you need to pick up a copy of The Deep End, now available on Blu-ray where ever most movies are sold.
I thought the movie was just OK. It didn’t have me on the edge of my seat. I also found it to drag at some points.
Tilda Swinton does do an excellent job as a frazzled and frightened woman who is trying desperately to protect her family while trying to get the situation under control. She has no choice but to do it all herself because she is unable to reach her husband. You can sense her loneliness and strong emotions throughout the film.
I have to say that Josh Lucas did a great job playing the lowlife Darby.
The film also does do a great job of telling the story without high speed car chases, special effects, sex and profanity. The film makers kept it simple. The scenery is beautiful too (I’d want to live on that lake).
There are bonus features on the Blu-ray including commentary and the film’s trailer. In another feature you learn about how this film was loosely based on the book The Blank Wall by Elizabeth Sanxay. In The Deep End the child’s gender was change (the role of Beau was originally a girl in the book) and The Deep End adds in the homosexuality to sort of “modernize” the story.
Here is the film’s trailer (my apologies for it being grainy – it’s all I could find).
Kimberly
*I received a free screener copy in order to do this review. There was no compensation. The opinions expressed are my own and not influenced in any way.
