The Deep End ***

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat, 'The Deep End' is a thoroughly average thriller of the sort you've seen dozens of times: person A gets killed; person B may or may not have done it; person C blackmails person B. In fact I would have totally skipped this movie entirely if it wasn't for a curious thing I noticed, namely average movie goers generally didn't particularly like the film very much, yet critics were generally pretty positive. That disparity interested me, and so I gave it a watch.

The most obvious reason for the praise is the presence of film critic darling Tilda Swinton, who in fact was nominated for a Golden Globe for this film, and it's easy to see why - she definitely carries the film as the blackmail victim. Any average actress in that role and I probably would dock it at least half a star. But there are also a few small things that distinguish this thriller from the rest of the pack - not by much, they are small things after all, but nevertheless worth noting.

First is the art direction. The whole film is blue. I mean very blue. The lighting is blue. The sets are blue. Everyone dresses in blue, and most of the props are blue. It's a little like a Picasso painting from his blue period. As you might expect, there are some notable exceptions, custom chosen to stand out against all this blue. One is the blackmailer's car, a bright red Chevy Nova, and the other is a bright red coat worn by Swinton. What exactly the filmmakers were trying to communicate through these motifs I'll leave it up to you to decide, however the film at least deserves some credit for it's aesthetic sensibilities.

The other thing that's noteworthy, and probably what makes the film see much more average than it probably did at the time, is that the whole blackmail scheme revolves around exposing Swinton's son not only as a potential murder suspect, but also as being gay. It's pretty clear that in the days of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' that would've packed a greater punch. But it's almost hard to see this movie even being made nowadays - the murder/blackmail scheme may be timeless, but the closeted homosexual twist really isn't much of a twist. And given that most audiences saw this on video (it only did modest box office), chances are this too accounts for some of the disparity in ranking.

I can't complain; predictable though it sometimes is, the dramatic talents of not only Swinton, but the supporting cast as well, make for entertaining viewing.