‘The Deep End’

Lake Tahoe provides a stark backdrop for this melancholy film noir thriller.   [R]

By: Kam Williams
   In the late 1940s, a film genre was born, reflecting the suspicion and anxiety of that era.
   The term "film noir" (French for "black film") was coined by critics who appreciated the bleak cinematography and maudlin, pessimistic themes present in many American films made around World War II. Shot with deep shadows in deliberately darkened black and white, these movies emphasized the moral ambiguity affecting the times by allowing their conflicted leads to get caught up in a compromising web of crime and corruption.

"Goran
Goran Visnjic and Tilda Swinton star in the contemporary film noir thriller The Deep End.

   The typical film noir features a femme fatale — a desperate, duplicitous, double-crossing temptress — who resorts to manipulating a man into taking the rap for a murder. Classics such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Double Indemnity (1944), Notorious (1946) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) are prime examples of this movie-making style, which fell out of popularity by 1960.
   Every now and then, as with Chinatown in 1974, The Last Seduction in 1993 and L.A. Confidential in 1997, the genre has enjoyed successful revivals. But only hard-core film noir fans are likely to appreciate The Deep End, a contemporary remake of The Reckless Moment, a 1949 suspense thriller starring Joan Bennett and James Mason.
   The problem isn’t that the update is poorly executed. Rather, it remains so faithful to the original that one is left wondering why writer/directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel (Suture) decided it needed to be redone. Other than the alteration of a romance from straight to gay and the elimination of the loyal, live-in black maid character entirely, the story remains the same.
   Both movies are based on The Blank Wall, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding’s steamy serialized novel, published in installments beginning with the October 1947 issue of Ladies Home Journal. But it’s hard to understand how Messrs. McGehee and Siegel have the temerity to take a writing credit when every plot twist from the first film remains intact. Even most of the principal characters names are nearly the same, with Nagle tweaked to Carlie Nagle, Ted Darby flipped to Darby Reese and Bea changed to a male character, Beau.
   The setting for this unimaginative rehash is a sinister-looking Lake Tahoe.
   Tilda Swinton stars as Margaret Hall, the anguished mother who gets mixed up with murder and the underworld in the course of protecting her family. At the outset, we learn Margaret’s 17-year-old son, Beau (Jonathan Tucker), has been riding to Reno to a gay nightclub called The Deep End and has become involved with the 30-year-old owner of the club, Darby (Josh Lucas).
   Alex Spera (Goran Visnjic), a street hustler whom Darby owes money, disrupts the Halls’ straight-laced middle-class lifestyle by blackmailing them with a tape of Beau and Darby having sex. Because Margaret’s naval officer husband is away and unavailable for months on an aircraft carrier, she must decide how to handle the crisis on her own. Ms. Swinton is nothing short of riveting in a role that often calls for her to occupy the screen alone, à la Tom Hanks in Castaway.
   I will not divulge any more of this unusual movie’s plot points for those unfamiliar with the eventual course of The Reckless Moment or The Blank Wall. This film, though not highly recommended due to its unimaginatively flagrant plagiarism, is nonetheless chock full of stellar performances. Kudos to cinematographer Giles Nuttgens for setting an appropriately astringent mood, an essential ingredient of film noir. Mr. Nuttgens is best known for his work with director Deepa Mehta on her controversial trilogy Earth, Fire and Water, the last of which was shut down during production by the Indian Government.
   In sum, as with Gus Van Sant’s recent remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, The Deep End is a another masterful "Who cares?" rip-off. I certainly didn’t. Been there, seen that.
Rated R. Contains bloody violence, periodic profanity and a graphic sex scene.