Python Hyena The Deep End (2001): Dir: Scott McGehee, David Siegel / Cast: Tilda Swinton, Goran Visnjic, Jonathan Tucker, Josh Lucas, Peter Donat: What does a mother do when she believes that her son committed murder? Her emotions travel severe grounds. She orders Derby to stay away from her son due to reckless behaviour. Despite the warning he shows up and encourages her son Beau to venture outside. The following morning she discovers Derby's body impaled on an anchor. To protect her son she dispatches the body. A stranger appears with a tape of Beau and Derby having sex then he blackmails her for money. The following day he arrives to the sight of her trying to revive her father after a heart attack and his guilt searches for options. Scott McGehee and David Siegel do well directing with a strong performance by Tilda Swinton as a mother under heavy duress from various angles. Goran Visnjic soon works with her while attempting to ease his partner's demands. He will ultimately do right but not without sacrifice. Fine supporting work by Jonathan Tucker as Beau, involved in a bad relationship that stems into tragedy. Josh Lucas plays Derby, his older sleazy lover who attempts to make financial gain to stay away from Beau until fate hits. It is a solid well made independent film that carries some power. How far may a parent go to protect their children? Score: 9 / 10

tpv999 Some of the lines uttered by these stick-figure characters were laughable. Some of the things Swinton's character does are ridiculous. Her character panics, but she just does not seem like the type who would panic---- by yanking out an anchor out of the victim's chest (with bare hands); attaching the body to the same rope and anchor; dumping the yellow tarp in her garbage can; jumping in to get the victim's car keys in her underwear in broad daylight; it's nuts. And the blackmailer's acting was bland, to go along with his ridiculous demands. He helps her with reviving her father-in-law? Jeez, I started out liking this movie but it just got too implausible after the first hour. However, the adolescent arrogance of the boy was played very will.

seymourblack-1 The majority of remakes tend to be disappointing, so it's especially enjoyable to see a movie like this which really bucks the trend. "The Deep End" is essentially a remake of Max Ophuls' "The Reckless Moment" and both movies were adapted for the screen from Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's story called "The Blank Wall". This thriller involves blackmail, a murder investigation and also a compelling account of the lengths a mother will go to in order to protect her family. Unusually though, it's also a story about characters who make great sacrifices for the people they care about.Margaret Hall (Tilda Swinton) lives near Lake Tahoe with her three children and father-in-law and becomes concerned about her 17 year old son's gay relationship with a significantly older man. She tries to persuade Darby Reese (Josh Lucas) to end the affair and he agrees to cooperate subject to a payment of $5,000. That night, however, he secretly visits Beau Hall (Jonathan Tucker) and after the two guys talk about Darby's readiness to be bought off, they argue and fight. Beau soon escapes and runs into the house but the dazed Darby staggers out of the boathouse and is accidentally killed as a result of falling onto an anchor on the beach.Next morning Margaret finds the body with some evidence which convinces her that her son was implicated and so to protect him, she dumps Darby's body in the lake. The body is found shortly after and a police investigation is launched immediately. A little later, things start to get complicated when a stranger called Alek Spera (Goran Visnjic) calls by Margaret's house and demands a substantial ransom to prevent him from passing a copy of a video tape to the police. The tape in question is potentially incriminating as it shows a sexual encounter involving Darby and Beau and thus establishes a close connection between the two men.Tilda Swinton is outstanding as the stressed and very determined mother who has to deal with a whole range of crises on her own because her husband is a naval officer whose duties keep him away from home for long periods of time. Swinton's expressions are incredibly effective in conveying the outward appearance of calmness which she feels she must maintain whilst at the same time giving hints of the enormous amount of fear and worry that she's experiencing. The range of duties and problems that her character deals with on a daily basis is impressive and also one of the reasons why her blackmailer unexpectedly changes his attitude towards her. Goran Visnjic displays the conflict which gradually develops within Spera very capably in what turns out to be a surprisingly good performance.The most striking difference between "The Deep End" and "The Reckless Moment" is that in the newer movie, the mother is motivated purely by a powerful desire to protect her family at all costs whereas in the older version there was also an element of being driven by a need to maintain the appearance of conforming with the perceived standards of her social class. There is also no indication in "The Deep End" that Margaret feels trapped by her family or that she feels any resentment about the pressures that their needs place on her."The Deep End" is a beautiful movie which is rich in atmosphere and the cinematography by Giles Nuttgens is marvellous. It's also well written, full of suspense and the development of the relationships between the various characters is interesting to watch.

Kenneth Anderson Once I had finished watching "The Deep End" I had to look at the Netflix packaging to find out what year it was made because I couldn't believe that in the year 2001 an entire suspense melodrama could be mounted on the lone homophobic premise, "Dad Can't Find Out!"This tale of a Mad-Mom (as in insane) who goes to great lengths to prevent the world from finding out that *gasp* her 17 year-old son is gay (she can't even say the word!) is like a perverse remake of the 1950's Loretta Young feature "Cause for Alarm!" in which an average housewife does numerous stupid things trying to conceal a death she had nothing to do with.Here the wonderful Tilda Swinton (a good deal less wonderful here) plays a mom whose protectiveness of her near-adult son borders on the psychotic. Indeed, as the film progressed and she acted wackier and wackier, I was sure that it would come out that she is unwholesomely possessive of her son. Sonny boy (sullen and closed-mouthed) is carrying on with a much older man and mom interferes in a way that even a 13 year old would find mortifying, much less a 17 year old. She operates under the assumption that her gay son has been seduced and lured into contact with this man, but from what we see, he is just a young man who has fallen in with a bad crowd and is drawn to an older guy. A creepy guy albeit, but when we later find out how absent the father is and would not understand his son's gayness no matter what, then subtext kicks in and you start to imagine that Sonny boy is drawn to bad boys and inappropriate partners for a reason. Mom, however is hearing none of this. Even when said son wrecks a car drunk driving with his lover, the mom convinces herself that it is the sole fault of the 30 year-old man, not her son who was actually behind the wheel. Her son seems troubled and she seems like a reactionary nut, but is this what the film focuses on? No. The film has the creepy older gay guy accidentally die on their property and mom spends the entire film covering it up because she thinks in some way her son is involved. Since this family is severely screwed up (to me, that is, the filmmakers seem to think this affluent family of non-communicative, isolated individuals is worth protecting from scary gamblin', screwin' and blackmailin' homosexuals) she never actually asks the son what happened, calls the police, or even wonders how she could think her son capable of murder. The son mourns his ex lover for about ten minutes and never loses much sleep over the possibility that he may have been the last one to see him alive. No, everything is a whirlwind of dance classes, music lessons, baseball games and laundry for this bunch. Who has time to talk?After a series of plot contrivances too ridiculous to recount (among them an empathetic blackmailer who doesn't have the heart for the job...oh yeah, there are lots of those around), an alarming amount of people pay with their lives for the sole purpose of keeping Sonny boy's big, dark secret from daddy and maintaining the privileged class status quo. Oh, brother! Much of the stupidity that preceded it would have been forgivable if at the end there was perhaps an awareness on the mother's part that the distasteful acts she engaged in were not equal to what she thought she was protecting: the problem was not that her son was gay, nor that he rebelliously got mixed up with a guy almost twice his age, the problem was that her son's father would not understand and that she raised her son in an environment where who he was was not as important as what he appeared to be to others. She was less concerned with his lying, underage drinking and hanging out with guys with possible mob ties than she was with his being gay and "outed." What are the biggest moral transgressions here?"The Deep End" is so woefully shallow and is content to sacrifice psychological depth for artificially earned suspense.I can't remember when I've been so put off by the unintended offensiveness of a film's premise. Loathed it.