The Deep End [DVD] [2001]

Swinton plays Margaret Hall a lonely wife living on the pretty shores of Lake Tahoe. Her husband is in the Navy and away at sea for much of the time leaving her to look after her three children and care for her ailing father-in-law.
Beau is the eldest teen-age son, and believes that his homosexual relationship with sleazy villain Darby Reece is a well-kept secret. Wrong! Unbeknown to Beau his mother has suspected his affair for some time, even confronting Reece at his club, to tell him to stay away. One evening Beau steals out of the house to meet Reece in the family boathouse. After an argument between the pair Reece is accidentally killed, and his body is discovered the following morning by Margaret who quickly realises that her son could be implicated. She decides to hide the bod, but it is not long before the police discover the corpse, and the story appears in the local press.

Enter hunk Goran Visnjic (star of TV show ER), a villain with a heart who initially tries to blackmail Margaret, before he is shown to relent. He was after sleaze ball Reece for money owed to him and his business partner, and has a video tape that shows Beau in an compromising position with Reece.

Visnjic slowly realises that despite the pressure put on him by his partner; his demands are not going to be met by Margaret.

Plot holes are large and rather obvious: most tellingly, why don't the police pick up on the connection between Reece and Beau, especially when Margaret had been seen at the club, where Reece worked.

However the on screen relationship between Swinton and Visnjic sizzles and the thriller is a combination of suspense and gentle love story, which works rather well.

I was pleasantly surprised. His character has somewhat of a farfetched role- turning from bad guy to good guy in 3 days...but he did a good job.

Tilda is an amazing actress too and I thought the two of them worked well together.

The film does not have you sat on the edge of your seat but it keeps your interest and is an enjoyable film to watch, definitely worth buying.

To be a little clearer it really was the lack of motivation that I was left wondering about. I could just not see the reasoning behind any of the characters' actions and their behaviour ranged from the puzzling to the downright bizarre.

To give a brief plot summary, Margaret Hall lives in the peaceful idyllic surroundings of Lake Tahoe with her three children and slightly distant father-in-law. Her husband we learn is away on manoeuvres with the Navy. Hall's eldest son, Beau, has fallen in with a dubious crowd emanating out of a gay club in nearby Reno. Beau, having a midnight argument with his boyfriend, unknowingly pushes him over the jetty and onto an upturned anchor. The next morning Margaret finds the body and takes it upon herself to hide the dead man thinking this will be the end of the matter. Alas it is not, as up steps blackmailer Al Spera, who is in possession of a compromising video tape of Beau and proceeds to attempt to extort money from Margaret.

OK, so there we have it, not a lot wrong with the plot idea. But what happens then is a list of motiveless actions from both the main two characters as they begin what is an almost sexless love affair. Hall, played by Tilda Swinton, careers from disaster to disaster, never loosing her cool and still managing to make her endless list of domestic task complete, whilst Spera played by ER heartthrob Goran Visnjic changes from heartless mobster to caring sharing protector in half an hour. I just didn't get it, there was no chemistry between these two people and I couldn't fathom out their actions for the life of me.