by Yazmin Ghonaim
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by Yazmin Ghonaim |
THE DEEP END
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Disturbed by her teenage son Beau's (Jonathan Tucker) risky liaison with older gay bar owner Darby Reese (Josh Lucas: American Psycho), Margaret Hall (Tilda Swinton: Orlando, The Beach) secretly travels to Reno from her home in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, to confront her son's lover with the intent of ending the affair. However, when Darby's body washes up in front of her secluded home the next day, Margaret's instinct to protect what she assumes is her son's doing dominates her fear and astonishment. Although managing to conceal the body, she learns that protecting her family entails more than hiding the evidence: it soon includes dealing with blackmailer Alek Spera (Goran Visnjic: Welcome to Sarajevo; Practical Magic; ER television series), who has injurious evidence of Beau's compromising position.
Although its plot simply revolves
around the difficulties the protagonist faces in trying to
keep the crime from revealing the criminal, The Deep
End focuses on Margaret's transformation during this
process (a process witnessed and understood only by Alek,
which results in an intriguing relationship between the two
characters). Interestingly, while Margaret is confronted
with the all-engulfing task of satisfying Alek's requests,
her greatest challenge is carrying on with her daily chores
--doing laundry, making dinner, picking up the children at
school-- without them nor her father-in-law (played by Peter
Donat) noticing a change, and without reaching out to her
husband, an admiral who is overseas. The Deep End
establishes Margaret's rejection of Darby as resulting
not from his homosexuality but from his untrustworthy
and corruptive nature (he had previously involved underage
Beau in a drunk-driving accident). However, one scene, where
a resisting Margaret is forced to see the videotaped
lovemaking of Beau and Darby, brings to the foreground
Beau's homosexuality and seems to establish it as the
mother's primary source of anguish. The Deep End's
most notable visual tool involves the recurrent theme of
water, captured by the cinematography of Giles Nuttgens
(best known for his work in director Deepa Mehta's
Fire and Earth).
While surface, underwater and
establishing (long) shots of a deceitfully placid lake
reflect a preoccupation with setting, the recursive figure
of water is further explored in highly stylized scenes that
include a water-faucet reluctantly dripping, a waterhose
violently filling a tank, and a water bottle dropping and
bursting on the ground. Although not directly affecting
plot, these images of water create an atmosphere of tension
and release, containment and escapement, effectively
externalizing the protagonist's emotional processes and, all
in all, portraying a world in which the comfortable flux of
daily life is dangerously agitated.
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Outstanding Features: |
Cinematography, Location Shooting, Acting |
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