The Deep End ***** (2001, Tilda Swinton, Goran Visnjic, Jonathan Tucker) – Classic Movie Review 2140

Red alert suspense buffs! Writer-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel (Suture, Bee Season) turn up the heat, tension and suspense on their compelling, stylish, fast-moving 2001 neo noir crime suspense thriller. It is played with total conviction and made with great flair and aplomb.

Tilda Swinton gets in too deep as Margaret Hall, an American mom who’ll stop at nothing to save her son from a smoothly sinister blackmailer called ‘Al’ Spera (ER’s Goran Visnjic) and a murder inquiry. Devoted, ordinary Lake Tahoe housewife Swinton hides the body of Darby Reese (Josh Lucas), a man she thinks her (actually innocent) gay 17-year-old son Beau (Jonathan Tucker) has murdered. But soon she’s being blackmailed for $50,000 by Visnjic’s handsome stranger Al, who knows all about her son’s secret life.

McGehee and Siegel base their screenplay on Elisabeth Sanxay Holding’s 1947 novel The Blank Wall. They evidently relish the film noir subtleties, the dark, moody atmosphere and all the story’s undercurrents, while the movie sees Swinton and creepy charmer Visnjik at their most persuasive.

A sizzling modern take on the 1949 classic The Reckless Moment with James Mason, crime thrillers don’t come any better than this in 2001.

Also in the cast are Peter Donat, Raymond Barry, Tamara Hope, Jordan Dorrance, Heather Mathieson, Holmes Osborne, Richard Gross, Kip Marton, Franco Delgado, Kip Ellwood, Margot Krindel, Michael Pizzuto, Tajma Soleil and F W McGehee.

Margaret’s date of birth of November 5 1960 is also Swinton’s.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2140

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