CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

pc95 During the opening credits, I'd noticed that "The Deep End" was adapted from a novel which I'd hoped was going to be done well. Alas directors McGehee and Siegel fail to create a good movie out of it, granted I didn't read the novel. Tilda Swinton single-handedly holds up the weight of an aloof and stilted script which has some glaring misgivings and failures. First and foremost the idiocy of the main character of which the tension gets created is an eye-roller, the dialog of Swinton and actor Goran Visnjic seems robotic, and the dysfunctionality of Swinton's character and her son in communication is poor feeling contrived. The movie's fight scenes are poorly done though editing and scene fades are on the better side. Swinton is tense and stressed out, believably so. Visnjic is stoic though satisfactory. Other actors as family are OK. The direction is mixed, and some scenes work while others seems more wooden or absurd, unfortunately more so towards the end. Mixed to poor - 5.5/10 - not really recommended

cstotlar-1 This film was a wonderful surprise. I wasn't aware of it - the publicity was scarce - so I watched it from word-of-mouth recommendations and enjoyed the entire experience thoroughly.Swinton's performance was a masterpiece of understatement. Her role was certainly no hammed-up overacted Academy Award performance. In fact it was virtuosity of the opposite nature. Underplaying a part can be excruciatingly difficult for both actors and the public and it requires effort on both parties. Thankfully the screenplay was a model of efficiency and tact with no whiz-bang histrionics at the end. The music from the magic of Ravel was astounding - again, subtle. The photography was magnificent and won well-deserved awards.Everything in the film meshes beautifully. I loved every golden moment.Curtis Stotlar

giantsfanatic Sorry to disappoint those who liked it, but to each his/her own. I saw it advertised on HBO and it was given 3 stars. I like Tilda Swinton and Tahoe is a gorgeous place so I thought OK this is going to be good.WRONG... It was trite, predictable, the acting was awful (by some of the actors) and had blasé stereotypes. Maybe, just maybe if this had been a period piece, set in the 60's, the big "threat" would have been more believable.There was NOTHING I liked about this film! I felt so dumb because, as I have done with other films, I kept waiting for it to redeem itself. That NEVER happened. All I did was waste time and walk away feeling cheated and grossly mislead by the 3 stars.I guess if I had to say a good thing about it? I didn't fork over $14.50 hard earned dollars to see this one.There I just saved you some valuable time.

blanche-2 Tilda Swinton stars in "The Deep End," a 2001 film also starring Goran Visnjic of 'ER' fame and Peter Donat. It's a modern remake of Max Ofuhls "The Reckless Moment." Swinton plays Margaret Hall, a busy mother in charge of three children and her father-in-law (Donat) while her naval husband is away at sea. Her older son Beau (Jonathan Tucker) is gay, and when the film starts, he has just been in a terrible car accident with his drunken boyfriend Darby (Josh Lucas). Margaret goes to see him at a nightclub, The Deep End, and asks him to stay away from her son. Though we don't see the scene, she offers him $5,000 to do so. That night, he comes to see Beau, and a fight occurs. After Beau goes back to his house, Darby falls off the peer, impaling himself on an anchor. Margaret finds the body the next day and gets rid of it in the ocean and drives his car to another location. But someone knows that Darby was there, and Margaret is visited by a blackmailer, Goran Visnjic, who represents himself and his partner, and he wants $50,000, or he will give a video of Beau having sex with Darby to the police.This is a story about unfinished thoughts, about a woman who does what she feels she has to without thinking it through. "If you're having feelings -" she says to her son, "My husband wouldn't understand -" she says to Visnjic about Beau, but never completes the sentence. She lives in a world where sometimes, it's easier not to know - or there's no time to really figure it out - and just cut to the situation.Someone on this board said this is a film that can be appreciated on many levels, and that's true. The level I'll offer is that the Swinton character is forced by circumstances to live in the moment and just take care of things as they come up - be it blackmail, her father-in-law collapsing, finding a dead body. She's the master of split-second decisions. When Visnjic orders her to "try harder" to get the $50,000, she admits that "yes, maybe I'm not trying hard enough. Maybe you can tell me how I can try harder between driving to ballet and soccer practice, trying to reach my husband..." He eventually sees what her life is, and, as the crux of the film, the two form an important bond.Tilda Swinton gives a brilliant performance, an underplayed one, of a woman who internally is on the verge of a nervous breakdown but externally holds it together for her family. When she goes to her father-in-law for money - $50,000 - as usual, she doesn't finish the whole thought, and he gives her $80 from his wallet. She only smiles and thanks him. When she finally breaks down, for the last reason one can imagine from the beginning of the film, she finds support from an unlikely person - who also has to keep it together amidst personal turmoil.One more thing - someone else on this board commented that there were many negative comments on this film from people looking at it from a technical point of view. That is the reaction I had from reading comments on "The Reader." There is an emotional aspect to film. Some of us would rather get into the characters more than the lighting. I guess you'd say it's just another level of appreciation.