Margaret Hill (Tilda Swinton) is a lonely Lake Tahoe housewife whose naval officer husband spends months at sea on an aircraft carrier. In his absence, Margaret does her best to do right by her family, no matter what. Margaret's routine has always included solving one emergency after another with quick decision. So when her eldest son Beau's (Jonathan Tucker) lover, Darby Reese (Josh Lucas), washes up on the beachfront in front of their house, she does the only thing an unflinchingly devoted mother could: she hides the body to protect her son.
Now unexpectedly, in the aftermath of this desperate act, emerges Alek Spera (Goran Visnjic), who knows about Darby's death and the secret life of her son. But what begins as a riveting cat-and-mouse game soon turns into a haunting love story with self-sacrifice at its centre. For as Margaret attempts to dodge blackmail, the law and even the questions of her family, she herself becomes exposed.
Special Agent Matti
Oh, boy. The deep end is less a thriller and more a tenser. I found myself riding up onto the edge of my seat because I couldn't relax.
Darned movies, darned actors!
Tilda Swinton is the domesticated housewife who is stuck filling her own and her husband's shoes. Absent fathers and strong mothers aside (you don't need them to be gay: sexuality being mostly genetic - but it doesn't hurt: sexuality needing room to grow), she's raising three kids and a decrepit parent-in-law and doing a darned fine job. The problems begin because Beau, beautifully played by Johnathan Tucker, has to lie. Lies are bad. He lies because his father is incapable of understanding him and his mother is too frantic. Beau's schoolfriends tell him that it's wrong to be gay and everyone else maintains the conspiracy of slience. Poor kid hasn't got a chance. In another time and place his parents would've found a nice, older man to educate him in the ways of the world (sex, money, career, social graces, etc.), but the USA is often a miserable place so he does the best he can on his own. Unfortunately, that's not enough.
It's sad, and you will feel for Beau, but it makes for some good drama. It also produces the most realistic gay sex I have ever seen in a Hollywood film. Both Darby and Beau actually enjoy it! Wow!
What's not so hot is the burgeoning relationship between Margaret and Alec: he's just a little too good-looking to be running a blackmail scam and she's just a little too flaccid to be pulling the bovver boys. Fortunately, Johnathan and Tilda have a chemistry between them that stays true right down to the final, tearful scene.
That's about all I have to say, except that you can also see Johnathan in a dreaded teen flick called 100 girls. Hollywood makes all its teenage actors participate in dreadful teen flicks, just in case they become hits and can be sold later on to the home entertainment market. Also, the title is a great pun as the characters are not only thrown in at the deep end (find themselves in circumstances beyond their control) but the also go off the deep end (nuts). Good thinking on someone's part.
MA 15+ (Adult theme, medium level sex scene)
97 minutes (1:37 hours)
Film: 22 November 2001
DVD rental: 15 May 2002
VHS rental: 15 May 2002
