The Deep End

This thriller could be described as experimental because of its particularly unusual set-up. Margaret Hall (Tilda Swinton) is protecting her seventeen-year-old son from an ongoing blackmail threat. She's keeping him blissfully unaware of this. She also keeps the blackmail a secret from the rest of the family: her husband (away at sea), her two younger children and their live-in grandfather.

In the first of several twists, each one of which is more impossible to believe than its predecessor, one of the blackmailers becomes so sympathetic to her family life that he'd rather take her side than grab her money.

The kicker is that Margaret insists that picking the kids up from ballet leaves her no time to raise blackmail money. She must not only protect against violence but also maintain an illusion of perfect normality. It's a picture of motherhood verging on the surreal.

Swinton's performance is as rock-solid as the image the mother presents to her family. At the same time, she's entirely there, and a million miles away.

The film's look is strongly conceived. The colours are faded out marine hues. Again and again, images of underwater confinement return. The mood achieved is as familiar and yet as strange as finding yourself under the sea.

The basic failure of the story to convince seems as remote as dry land - almost too far away to register. In fact, the way in which the film's failure fails to count against it is what makes the film memorable.
posted on 2/20/2002 05:11:00 PM