Movie Review – The Deep End (2001)

Overall 2.0 / 5.0 (meh)
Gay Content 2.0 / 5.0
Gay Positivity 3.0 / 5.0

This movie bills itself as a thriller. It’s not. It’s a family drama with suspenseful elements. The story is not taut enough to qualify as a film made in the Hitchcock tradition (a claim made on the back of the DVD). The implausibilities in the story makes it hard to buy into. I constantly questioned the motives of the characters. I didn’t understand why any of them did the things they did, which distracted me from the suspense.

The main character, Margaret Hall (in a great performance by Tilda Swinton), is an ordinary housewife whose military husband is overseas. She discovers her teenage son (Beau, played by Jonathan Tucker) has an older, scuzzy boyfriend (Darby Reese, played by Josh Lucas) from nearby Reno. The boyfriend comes to their house, he and Beau fight, and the next morning Margaret discovers Darby’s dead body.

The filmmakers say that Margaret reacts based on a protective instinct, which leads her to behave recklessly. Apparently believing her son killed the man during their argument, she disposes of the body. She otherwise comes across as quite level-headed, so this action is out of character for her.

And then she doesn’t pursue the matter with her son. She asks him what happened the previous night, but he’s reluctant to talk about it (she had asked him not to see Darby anymore). And despite the fact THERE’S A DEAD BODY INVOLVED she doesn’t press Beau about it.

The movie is based on a novel that I have not read, so the film may have inherited some of its flaws from the novel. I do know that in the book the dead man is the older boyfriend of Margaret’s daughter. The filmmakers changed the daughter into a closeted gay son, thinking that the lack of communication about his sexual orientation would explain why they don’t discuss this incident.

But that doesn’t make sense to me either – she figures out he’s gay, and she’s not a reticent person. Once a possible murder occurs, why doesn’t she just flat out ask him? In fact, why does she suspect him in the first place? See the spoiler section below for more comments on this issue.

Then some blackmailers enter the picture with a video of Darby screwing Beau. Again, I didn’t understand this. Darby owed these blackmailers money, and they see an opportunity with this apparent murder to extort money from Margaret. Fair enough. But I do not understand the blackmailers’ persistence, even when events fail to go their way.

Beau was clearly not involved in whatever relationship Darby had with the bad guys. They’re just being opportunistic, which bad people will be, but are they really going to murder this ordinary suburban family, risking their criminal enterprise, for a debt that wasn’t even this family’s obligation to begin with?

As for the videotape, if Paris Hilton can become a TV star with her own homemade porn leaked to the public, I think Beau would have survived. If anything, it’s the people with the film of the underage boy having sex who would get themselves in trouble.

Yes, Margaret created a problem for herself when she tried to hide the body without calling the police. That, in conjunction with the video, doesn’t look good. So I acknowledge that Margaret opened the door to the unpleasantness with her own foolishness. But still, the videotape is just too weak a motivator for me to understand why she complies. Once again, at that point, why didn’t she just approach Beau about what happened and go to the police, instead of continuing to assume her son’s guilt?

Most of the movie traces Margaret’s response to this set of circumstances, as well as her attempts to extricate herself and her family from the intrigue.

Overall, the highlight of the film is the acting, especially Tilda Swinton, though all the primary players shine. The technical aspects of the film were also well done. The movie looks very polished with good editing and clever shots. The evolution of Margaret’s relationship with the blackmailer Alek (Goran Visnjic) was also fresh and unusual.

The story, however, disappoints. As I mentioned at the beginning of the review, it may make for an interesting drama but a poor thriller, given its weak plot riddled with holes. If watching a great thriller is like walking a tightrope, this movie was like a stroll through mud.

I did find the gay content in the film interesting. Darby is a cad who dies; he’s both victimizer and victim, so the filmmakers managed to capture two stereotypes in one blow. But on the positive side, Beau is just an ordinary kid who happens to be gay, and his mother still loves him.

And although the gay content starts the film off, once the story gets moving, Beau’s sexuality has little to do with the plot, and none of the other characters are gay. It’s kind of refreshing to see a film whose gay content is significant to the story but not the focus.

Still, since the film works better as a drama, I would have liked to see more direct conversations about it between Margaret and Beau, particularly if it was handled in a fresh way (as opposed to every other coming out movie). That could have added another layer to the story.

** WARNING – Major Spoiler Alert – The following discusses the problematic ending. Do NOT read further if you don’t want to know **

The ending is a let-down. The single question that kept my attention was, what actually happened to Darby Reese? The answer: It was an accident. He literally fell onto an anchor, which pierced his chest. Again, the scriptwriter adapted the movie from a book, so he may have inherited the weak plot.

The story would have been much more interesting, however, if Darby actually had been murdered. Then we’d have not just Margaret dealing with the blackmailers but also trying to figure out who really did it. But it turns out, no one did.

And again I return to my earlier question. Why the hell didn’t she just ask her damn son about it? They could have saved themselves SO MUCH TROUBLE if they’d just figured out it was an accident, called the police, and been done with it!