The
Deep End is a retake of the classic film The
Reckless Moment (1949), starring James Mason and Joan
Bennett; both are based on the novel The Blank Wall
(1949) by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding. But in The Deep
End the mother is trying to protect her son, not her
daughter. The title for the film The Deep End,
directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, is derived from
the name of a male strip club in Reno, Nevada, where seventeen-year-old
Beau Hall (played by Jonathan Tucker) has been going to have
sex with Darby Reese (played by Josh Lucas). Margaret Hall
(played by Tilda Swinton), Beau’s mother, evidently accepts
the fact that her son is gay but rejects Reese as his lover,
presumably because Beau drove home drunk from Reno one night
and was nearly killed when his car got into an accident. Accordingly,
she drives to The Deep End one afternoon to ask Reese, whom
she has somehow discovered is Beau’s lover, not to see
her son any more. Although Reese offers not to see Beau any
more if she will pay him $5,000, she refuses. That same night
Reese drives his Corvette to visit Beau in his home on the
California side of Lake Tahoe. In pitch dark, after reluctantly
sneaking out of his room to talk to Reese in the adjacent
boathouse, the two scuffle. As Beau runs home, he is unaware
that Reese falls from the boathouse pier, hits his head on
an anchor, and dies. In the morning, Margaret goes outside,
discovers the body, drags the corpse into a motorboat, ties
the anchor to his feet, drives the motorboat to an inaccessible
spot, and dumps him into Lake Tahoe. She then pays more of
price for the cover-up than she perhaps anticipates in order
to save her son from being charged with the crime while trying
to maintain the appearance that everything is normal amid
a family consisting of Beau, his two younger siblings, and
her father-in-law, Jack (played by Peter Donat). The suspense
is quite gripping for many filmviewers, as the genre is Hitchcockian,
focusing as it does on Margaret’s emotions, which leap
out of her facial expressions. Her first challenge comes when
she discovers the victim’s parked Corvette, whereupon
she returns to the watery grave so that she can dive into
the water to recover the keys and then drive the vehicle away
to a hotel parking lot. Her second challenge comes when Alek
Spera (played by Goran Visnjic) suddenly appears with a videotape
of Reese performing anal intercourse on her son, for which
she must pay $50,000 or the tape will be turned over to the
police. Although Margaret desperately tries to raise the money,
ultimately hocking her wedding ring for one-fourth of the
payoff, she persuades Spera that she simply cannot meet the
extortion demand while taking care of her family, including
her father-in-law, who has a heart attack at one critical
point. Spera even assists Margaret in reviving Jack and later
changes sides, refusing to collect the full amount. But Spera
is the bagman for crime boss Carlie Nagle (played by Raymond
J. Barry), who presents the third challenge when Spera reports
that he has only $12,500 instead of $50,000. When Nagle shows
up at the Hall residence to use strong-arm methods, Spera
intervenes, there is a fight, and Spera kills > Nagle. After
Spera drags Nagle into the latter’s car, he drives down
the highway, loses control, and the overturned car pins him
inside. Margaret gets her son to drive Spera’s car, since
she does not know how to use a stick shift, and they follow
the car. On discovering the overturned car, she rushes to
help Spera, but he asks her to take back the $12,500 before
he dies. After returning home, the nightmare is presumably
over, though a few loose ends remain. Presumably the son believes
that Margaret was having an affair with Spera because she
has no sexual outlet while her husband is on a naval ship
somewhere in the North Atlantic, whereas she hides her belief
that Beau killed Reese. MH
I
want to comment on this film
