The premise seems so unlikely that it may raise a few eyebrows, so some early suspension of disbelief is called for. In particular, one has to wonder what state of mind the protagonist must be in, to make some of the decisions she does. But then, "The Deep End" is less about the premise, subsequent events, or plot devices, and more about strength, bonds and love, that are often at their loudest and most poignant when unspoken. This film's message can be found in its quiet spaces, for those who know how to listen. A strong and different type of performance from Tilda Swinton, with perfectly-pitched supporting shows from Goran Visnjic and Jonathan Tucker. Minor characters are fairly two-dimensional, and so hammy that it's verging on camp, but they only serve as vehicles to emphasize traits of the main characters or to convey a certain atmosphere, and this does not overly detract from the message, or from one's enjoyment of the film. Worth a detour.

During the opening credits, I'd noticed that "The Deep End" was adapted from a novel which I'd hoped was going to be done well. Alas directors McGehee and Siegel fail to create a good movie out of it, granted I didn't read the novel. Tilda Swinton single-handedly holds up the weight of an aloof and stilted script which has some glaring misgivings and failures. First and foremost the idiocy of the main character of which the tension gets created is an eye-roller, the dialog of Swinton and actor Goran Visnjic seems robotic, and the dysfunctionality of Swinton's character and her son in communication is poor feeling contrived. The movie's fight scenes are poorly done though editing and scene fades are on the better side. Swinton is tense and stressed out, believably so. Visnjic is stoic though satisfactory. Other actors as family are OK. The direction is mixed, and some scenes work while others seems more wooden or absurd, unfortunately more so towards the end. Mixed to poor - 5.5/10 - not really recommended

Tilda Swinton's son, Jonathon Tucker, is a homosexual trumpet player about to enter college on a scholarship, but she knows nothing about his sexual proclivities. (I think; I missed the first few minutes.) Swinton's husband is a naval officer on an extended trip overseas. The family home is a comfortable dwelling on the shore of Lake Tahoe, on the Nevada side.A man approaches her, informs her of Tucker's sexual activities, and threatens to expose him unless she hands over fifty thousand dollars. Shove comes to push, the extortionist falls off the dock, lands on the upright flukes of an anchor, and is killed.The hysterical Swinton dumps his body in the lake, where it's promptly found by an unlucky fisherman. Swinton is then visited by still another blackmailer, a handsome young man, not unsympathetic. But the big boss behind the scam is pitiless and wants the whole boodle, which Swinton is unable to raise, due to the absence of her husband.Thereafter it gets twisted. The evil die, while the good flourish as the green bay tree.It would have been a good black-and-white B movie from Warners in the 1930s or 1940s -- blackmail scheme goes awry. What lifts it out of that particular genre are two things.The presence and the performance of Tilda Swinton, which is really quite good. Her features are idiosyncratic. Her rather ordinary face features these startlingly blue eyes topped by brows so pale that they make La Giocanda look like Salma Hayek. They're both piercing and terrified. And she's a fine actress, judging from this film, despite her being barely handsome enough to serve as romantic lead without a big do-over.The second thing is the location shooting at Lake Tahoe. It's immediately identifiable for where it is. Those granite rocks of the Sierra Nevada are unmistakable. But, with a little suspension of belief, it could be a fairy-tale Switzerland. But don't even think of living in Lake Tahoe. You couldn't afford a pup tent.It's worth seeing -- at least once.

Once I had finished watching "The Deep End" I had to look at the Netflix packaging to find out what year it was made because I couldn't believe that in the year 2001 an entire suspense melodrama could be mounted on the lone homophobic premise, "Dad Can't Find Out!"This tale of a Mad-Mom (as in insane) who goes to great lengths to prevent the world from finding out that *gasp* her 17 year-old son is gay (she can't even say the word!) is like a perverse remake of the 1950's Loretta Young feature "Cause for Alarm!" in which an average housewife does numerous stupid things trying to conceal a death she had nothing to do with.Here the wonderful Tilda Swinton (a good deal less wonderful here) plays a mom whose protectiveness of her near-adult son borders on the psychotic. Indeed, as the film progressed and she acted wackier and wackier, I was sure that it would come out that she is unwholesomely possessive of her son. Sonny boy (sullen and closed-mouthed) is carrying on with a much older man and mom interferes in a way that even a 13 year old would find mortifying, much less a 17 year old. She operates under the assumption that her gay son has been seduced and lured into contact with this man, but from what we see, he is just a young man who has fallen in with a bad crowd and is drawn to an older guy. A creepy guy albeit, but when we later find out how absent the father is and would not understand his son's gayness no matter what, then subtext kicks in and you start to imagine that Sonny boy is drawn to bad boys and inappropriate partners for a reason. Mom, however is hearing none of this. Even when said son wrecks a car drunk driving with his lover, the mom convinces herself that it is the sole fault of the 30 year-old man, not her son who was actually behind the wheel. Her son seems troubled and she seems like a reactionary nut, but is this what the film focuses on? No. The film has the creepy older gay guy accidentally die on their property and mom spends the entire film covering it up because she thinks in some way her son is involved. Since this family is severely screwed up (to me, that is, the filmmakers seem to think this affluent family of non-communicative, isolated individuals is worth protecting from scary gamblin', screwin' and blackmailin' homosexuals) she never actually asks the son what happened, calls the police, or even wonders how she could think her son capable of murder. The son mourns his ex lover for about ten minutes and never loses much sleep over the possibility that he may have been the last one to see him alive. No, everything is a whirlwind of dance classes, music lessons, baseball games and laundry for this bunch. Who has time to talk?After a series of plot contrivances too ridiculous to recount (among them an empathetic blackmailer who doesn't have the heart for the job...oh yeah, there are lots of those around), an alarming amount of people pay with their lives for the sole purpose of keeping Sonny boy's big, dark secret from daddy and maintaining the privileged class status quo. Oh, brother! Much of the stupidity that preceded it would have been forgivable if at the end there was perhaps an awareness on the mother's part that the distasteful acts she engaged in were not equal to what she thought she was protecting: the problem was not that her son was gay, nor that he rebelliously got mixed up with a guy almost twice his age, the problem was that her son's father would not understand and that she raised her son in an environment where who he was was not as important as what he appeared to be to others. She was less concerned with his lying, underage drinking and hanging out with guys with possible mob ties than she was with his being gay and "outed." What are the biggest moral transgressions here?"The Deep End" is so woefully shallow and is content to sacrifice psychological depth for artificially earned suspense.I can't remember when I've been so put off by the unintended offensiveness of a film's premise. Loathed it.