The Europeans have been doing these kinds of step by step thrillers for years, and mostly without big bangs , or loud music , or visual scare tactics that cheaply provoke a jump in the seat. Jack Nicholson's The Pledge came close last year , oddly set in similar locations as The Deep End , but that film lacked polish and culminated in an awful conclusion. This movie has everything, solid cast, understated dialogue that doesn't rely on artificial extremes of bad language, and a real sense of putting the viewer in a "what would I do ?" mode. Tilda Swinton excells by being truly motherly and down to earth as one bad situation leads to another. There are some minor plot holes that aren't serious enough to go into that prevent this from being a perfect ten. But shot at picturesque Lake Tahoe , it has the feel of a foreign film. That's due to the aforementioned lack of manipulation .
Review of The Deep End
