Cruising with Penny Lane

ALMOST FAMOUS (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
(Best film of 2000 - Review originally written in 2000)

Cameron Crowe is the Stanley Kubrick of rock n' roll cinema. Here is a man who takes his time to develop his stories before unveiling them to the public. Consider "Say Anything" in 1989, followed by "Singles" (his second best film) in 1992, to the cloying and superficial Tom Cruise comedy-drama "Jerry Maguire" in 1996. Four years later, Crowe has created his most personal film by far, and certainly one of his most insightful. "Almost Famous" is an autobiographical look at an ambitious reporter who loves rock n' roll music, and decides to interview a reluctant band. The only catch is that the reporter is 15 years old!

Newcomer Patrick Fugit plays overachiever William Miller (based on Crowe's own days as a teen reporter), who lands an unusual assignment - Rolling Stone has asked him to cover a story on the up-and-coming fictional band Stillwater. Apparently, Rolling Stone is astounded by his in-depth story of the band in the magazine "Creem." Lo and behold, the youthful, naive William now travels with Stillwater on the road across the United States. William stays in hotels, loses his virginity to a few groupies, develops a crush on Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), a groupie who is in love with the band's lead guitarist, Russell (Billy Crudup), and in short soaks up their grungy atmosphere while trying to record their thoughts on fame and the band's future on tape. As Penny grows charmed by the young man, she lets him know that he is "too sweet for rock n' roll." And so he is, to the point where William is continuously called by his overprotective mother, a college professor (Frances McDormand), who warns him about drugs by simply stating "Don't do drugs."

There are many people that dominate William's life. The most significant is Russell, whom he develops a strong friendship with based on mutual respect. Penny is an even stronger friend who helps to get William laid, but she is so obsessed over her relationship with Russell that she forgets he may not love her. There is also the "uncool" rock journalist Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who warns William that rock music's genesis, the need to lose control, is losing its potency and to be wary of rock musicians who will only use him to get a nice cover story. The last thing a band needs is negative press.

"Almost Famous" floats by on Patrick Fugit's charm and elfish eyes - he has the sympathetic ooze and trustworthiness of Tobey Maguire. He is so enamored by this band that he is willing to take risks along with them. This also means that William has to abandon his school career and pending graduation. But who cares when you have sex, drugs and rock n' roll! Fugit is so damn lovable and likable that it is impossible to hate the film for having such a warm, fuzzy character at its center.

Also worth mentioning is the up-and-coming actor Billy Crudup ("Jesus's Son") who shows a temperamental nature in Russell, particularly at a party where he does acid and begins to badger the kid. Russell is also changed by William, and realizes his mistakes in his affairs. Kate Hudson, Goldie Hawn's daughter, is also quite good as the emotionally fraught Penny, affected by William's puppy-dog eyes and sweetness - her near-overdose scene is also effective as William tries to get help and admits his love for her. Philip Seymour Hoffman is delightfully witty and on-target as Lester Bangs - he has the best one-liners in the film and should get a deserved Best Supporting Actor nomination. Frances McDormand offers fine support as William's mother who has a disdain for rock music on purely immoral grounds. Also memorable are Jason Lee as the group's loud lead singer who considers William the "enemy", and Fairuza Balk and Anna Paquin as groupies who are there for the music.

I could have lived without the tumultuous scene in a plane where everyone feels the need to confess to their sins or the far too tidy final scene, and yet there is nothing in "Almost Famous" that does not work. Every scene feels honest and truthful, and Cameron Crowe's gift is in keeping the camera static and observational. Crowe has a gift for colorful dialogue and situations, and for bringing the appropriate mix of pathos and realism from his actors. My favorite scene is when the band is on a bus tour and they sing-along to Elton John's "Tiny Dancer." A scene like that might have been laughable or contrived under lesser hands, but Crowe manages to find a family connection between the members of the band and it pays off with poignance. Maybe someone like Paul Thomas Anderson might have shown the grittier, soulless side of the 70's rock music era whereas Crowe's affection for his characters and his own tumultuous, personal connection to them does not allow for it. By refusing to be sentimental, Crowe has made one of the livelier, soulful films about the 1970's that I've seen in quite a long time.

Weird, wonderful, trippy ride thru a bizarre Oz landscape

WILD AT HEART (1990)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(One of the best films of the 90's)

'The whole world is wild at heart and weird on top'.

That statement could sum up director David Lynch's film career. It is a line delivered by Lula (Laura Dern), the sexy siren who has a thing for Sailor (Nicolas Cage), the ex-convict. He gets out of jail and is picked up by Lula as they embark on a truly strange odyssey where they find oily, snarly hit men and other unlikable louts like dishonorable thieves with bad teeth and so on. Their first stop on this ride is the hotel at the Cape Fear. Welcome to the wonderful world of David Lynch. 

The crux of the film is the love story between Sailor and Lula, a match made in heaven who indulge in sex, cigarettes, bars, clubs, more sex and finally, a robbery. Lula's mother (Diane Ladd) hates Sailor and wishes him dead, especially for killing a hit man she hired eons ago. She refuses to have Sailor dominate her daughter's life again and asks the help of a cold-blooded killer (J.E. Freeman) to kill Sailor and a private detective, Johnnie Farragut (Harry Dean Stanton), she already sent to track Sailor! Meanwhile, Sailor and Lula travel from motel to motel meeting an assortment of characters along the way, including a hoodlum named Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe) who has robbery on his mind. And then there is a discovery that Lula is pregnant. Plus, we see nude aides to a drug baron who goes by the name, Mr. Reindeer. Then there is some vomiting, an attempted rape, and a hapless victim of a car accident. Oh, yes and for more demented goings-on, there is a town named Big Tuna in Texas, a robbery involving hands and heads blown off, and a hysterically funny Crispin Glover as a disturbed individual who lets insects crawl in his butt. And there are all those "Wizard of Oz" homages in every scene. No Lynch film can be complete without a cameo by Jack Nance ("Eraserhead") as...well, you have to see it.

"Wild at Heart" is based on a novel by Barry Gifford and it could best be described as a zany, obscene, hellish variation on "Wizard of Oz" with songs by Elvis. It is consistenly funny, crude, violent and bizarre in its melding of film noir with a Western landscape and its near parodic overtones. But it is not serious noir - more like a pulp fiction carnival of raging emotions and pure malevolence. It is so melodramatic and over-the-top that it achieves a new low in cinematic crudity. And yet, as directed by David Lynch, it has such a breezy, non-stop attitude of anything goes in this weird world that it achieves a new kind of hip poetry. Considering it was released in 1990 and won the coveted Golden Palm award at Cannes, I see it as the precursor to Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers" and Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" in terms of the high energy level, histrionic performances and the postmodern genre-bending of noir staples that find their own bizarre infusion from Lynch's own insane mind.

"Wild at Heart" is a fusion of all the cliches of the road movie genre with distinct Lynch-isms throughout. But this is no "Bonnie and Clyde" revisited - it is too strange and amoral for the mainstream movie crowd yet it is too watchable and chaotic to easily dismiss. Either way, it is one hell of a ride at the movies.

The 4 Quadrants of Life

TIMECODE (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

As a sheer experiment in filmmaking, "Timecode" is audacious but as human drama, it fails to evoke much of an emotional response, though it has selective moments of humanism and it is often compelling.

"Timecode" takes place during a hazy afternoon in Los Angeles near Sunset Boulevard where a "creative meeting" is taking place among ad executives in an office building, and other events occur with different characters outside the building and beyond, including a psychiatrist's office and a limo that travels from some mansion to the aforementioned building. I don't want to sound too general with such a description, but that is about it. The characters merely float by us, making little introductions and soundbites. If this sounds like a documentary, in many ways, it is. Let me explain further.

As directed by Mike Figgis ("Leaving Las Vegas"), "Timecode" was shot in real time using four digital cameras that each recorded up to 93 minutes of footage in one single continuous take. Not only is this the longest long take ever devised on film (shot of course on video and then transferred to film), but it is also the first film to ever have four 93 minute takes in four quadrants of the screen projected at the same time. The idea of breaking up the screen in four quadrants is not a new visual trick but an entire film viewed in this manner is new and something to behold. Often, Figgis will drown out sound from one or more quadrants to focus on something significant in another. This aural technique makes me wonder why Figgis did not cut the film to focus on what he wanted us to be attentive to. Perhaps this is my own problem of trying to discover what the director intended but I much rather see such an experiment used as part of the underlying story, as opposed to just for the sake of style.

Some of the basic characters include a coke-sniffing security guard (Danny Huston), a jealous lesbian (Jeanne Tripplehorn, who spends most of the film in a limo), another lesbian with hopes of movie stardom (Salma Hayek), an attentive psychiatrist (Glenne Headley), and the founder of a film studio (Stellan Skarsgard) who is coming apart at the seams over a failed relationship. Skarsgard makes the biggest impression, creating a full-bodied character portrait of a lost soul, whereas the other characters sort of drift by, including a barely audible Holly Hunter as an ad exec. I did enjoy the frenetic Richard Edson, an unsung actor to be sure, as a low-budget film director with drug problems.

Despite what is a literally mind-boggling visual experience to endure, the film is still quietly fascinating, and there are moments that break up the quiet, stately style such as a series of earthquakes, some screaming fits and a chilling finale. The use of music by Gustav Mahler gives the film some punch. All in all, a semi-successful experiment that will hopefully lead to more exciting uses for such an innovative technique. Although it is draining and sometimes repetitive, "Timecode" is certainly brave and risky fare. Just what we would expect from Mike Figgis.

A Math Wiz who is too good to be true

GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 1997)

Films about child prodigies or twentysomething geniuses rarely get inside their heads and ask: "What makes you tick?" An even tougher question rarely posed is: "How do you deal with who you are?" Slight films in this category that could have been great include Jodie Foster's "Little Man Tate," and the predictable Rocky-crossed-with-chess-playing tale "Searching For Bobby Fischer." There's also the finely acted "Stand and Deliver" that dealt with inner-city kids who miraculously performed better in A.P. Calculus exams than anyone else, but they didn't exist as anything more than ciphers. One film that broke through that barrier was the marvelous "Amadeus," which depicted the rare talents of the wonderful composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in blazing glory with, naturally, great music to alleviate the senses. The Oscar-winning film was a three-dimensional portrait of Mozart presenting him as a buffoonish clown who didn't seem arrogant, but knew how good a composer he was. Now there is also "Good Will Hunting," a finely acted, well-written drama about a math genius who is too good to be true, and that is part of the film's problem.

The charismatic Matt Damon stars as the conceited orphan Will Hunting; a South Bostonian hooligan who drinks, fights, and generally fools around with his buddies. He works as a janitor at MIT and, once in a while, he solves complex math problems posed by an MIT professor (Stellan Skarsgard) on a hallway blackboard. When the professor finally spots him solving a problem, he decides to use Will as a math instructor to solve all kinds of difficult math theorems that had conflicted scientists for centuries. Will is reluctant at first, but he decides to go along with it since it is way of avoiding jail time. It also means that he has to see a brilliant therapist (Robin Williams) twice a week - a former child prodigy who will try to uncover what makes this troubled kid tick.

Will has the ability to see through people - he can make Harvard students envious with his textbook knowledge of politics, and he can drive people mad with aggravation, including the therapist who Will discovers is a widower. Lest anyone think that he's just a brainiac, Will also has the ability to love, especially a British Harvard student (Minnie Driver) who wants to help him grapple with his emotions. There's a priceless scene where he picks up Minnie at a bar. She asks if they could get together for coffee. He suggests caramels: "When you think about it, it is as arbitrary as drinking coffee."

"Good Will Hunting" has a terrific premise - a troubled genius who suppresses his past - and although the film deals with his abusive past, it never confirms or explains Will's genius. Where does it stem from and, more importantly, how does Will feel about his own intelligence? The movie treats Will as a misunderstood genius rather than allowing Will to see how he mistreats and misunderstands himself. That's probably too much to expect from a film, but I wouldn't have minded to see Will's brain at work - how about a scene where we see the mental process by which Will solves a math problem? There are some instances where we see Will's genius at work (the courtroom scenes where Will avoids misdemeanor jail sentences by quoting legal cases from the 19th century is a good example) but they are not enough to show how Will's mind unravels. Mostly, we see the selfish MIT professor trying to use Will's mind as an experiment for his own ambitions, and there's the therapist who is trying to get Will to confront his past - yes, you've seen these subplots before.

"Good Will Hunting" has plenty of expert performances from the cast, including Matt Damon ("Courage Under Fire") as the fast-talking Will; Ben Affleck ("Chasing Amy") as Will's beer-drinking buddy who has a pivotal moment where he tries to convince Will to take advantage of his talents; the luscious Minnie Driver as Will's girlfriend who loves him; and the grand Robin Williams as the hip therapist who has been down the same road as Will. Williams, in his Awakenings mode, is brilliantly understated and a joy to watch as we see him gradually trying to get Will to open his heart. His final scene, where he repeatedly acknowledges to Will that it is "not your fault," is emotionally powerful and heartbreaking.

"Good Will Hunting" is competently directed by Gus Van Sant ("Drugstore Cowboy") but Van Sant never gets as close to Will's nature as he did to River Phoenix's in "My Own Private Idaho." The first-time screenplay by co-stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon is often smartly funny, manipulative and quasi-sentimental but not as freshly developed as I might have hoped. By the end of the film, you feel that Will Hunting is more like an unreal movie character than a genuine, three-dimensional human being.

Anonymous police drama

COP LAND (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 1997)

 Sylvester Stallone has not had a beguiling career since the heyday of "Rocky" nearly ten years ago. Since then, he's tried and failed with comedy ("Oscar"), musicals ("Rhinestone"), and endless sequels ("Rocky V"). Stallone is usually best in his action roles such as "Rambo" or "Cliffhanger," but his range as an actor is fairly limited. "Cop Land" is supposed to be Stallone's first very dramatic role (at least since the slight but still watchable "F.I.S.T") but there's no energy and no enthusiasm, much like the movie itself.

Stallone plays Fred Heflin, a simple-minded, stolid sheriff of Garrison, a fictional New Jersey town. His chain of command in this town is nil, and he only has two other people in his staff. His basic duties are relegated to traffic duty. The New York cops who run this Jersey town are controlling everything but there's corruption boiling everywhere. Michael Rapaport plays a cop nicknamed Superboy who inadvertently kills two black teenagers during a car chase. The police want to cover it up, and Superboy supposedly commits suicide by jumping off a bridge. Fred is oblivious to these surroundings and decides to take no action against the corrupt cops because they put him where he is now. A colorful Internal Affairs officer (Robert De Niro) tries to get information from the unwilling Fred but fails. It turns out Fred is more interested in a cop's wife (Annabella Sciorra) but when people start getting knocked off, he decides he has to do what is morally correct. He gets some guidance from a former cop (Ray Liotta) who is also a cokehead.

"Cop Land" could have worked with some imaginative direction, a stronger plot and a better performance by the lead actor but it is no different from any TV movie on the same subject. There have been countless movies on police corruption - the best of these was the decadent "Bad Lieutenant" - and so there's nothing here we haven't seen before and better. For example, there's a gun planted at a crime scene; a typical Internal Affairs interrogation scene; badges flashed by several cops; nonessential bar fights; and a final, cliched shootout staged in slow-motion a'la Peckinpah. None of this is handled with any energy, flash, or vigor - it has a TV movie staleness that discomfits rather than enthralls.

Stallone is inarticulate as a dramatic actor and, although that might help the role, he sleepwalks through the film with no trace of humor or passion. Harvey Keitel is naturally more animated as an actor but his corrupt cop character is something he can play in his sleep. Ray Liotta is convincingly frantic as the druggy cop but his role is too similar to his Henry Hill character in "GoodFellas." Peter Berg, Frank Vincent, Michael Rapaport, Cathy Moriarty, Janeane Garofalo and Annabella Sciorra play trivial, forgettable roles with no inner life or central meaning to the story. A chance meeting between De Niro and Keitel is wonderful to behold but the scene is never followed up on. Ditto the Garofalo character, a new cop in Heflin's staff, who helps Heflin at the beginning but then decides to leave town. Why? Where's the transition?

"Cop Land" is directed by James Mangold who helmed the brilliant character study "Heavy." This film, though, has the same snail pace and static energy, and it deadens rather than enliven the proceedings. Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta breathe life into the film whenever they appear on screen. Stallone and "Cop Land," however, are too ordinary and listless to keep anyone interested. Watch the invigorating TV show "NYPD Blue" instead.

Interview with Peter Zaremba: Hear that American Beat on the Silver Screen

INTERVIEW WITH PETER ZAREMBA: HEAR THAT AMERICAN BEAT ON THE SILVER SCREEN

By Jerry Saravia

Peter Zaremba, performing with the Fleshtones at the World Cafe Live, Oct. 2013

We are so inundated with hearing songs in movie soundtracks that we have become immune to the true rock and rollers, the ones that have their songs played loudly while burning up the screen and riveting our attention. There are but a few that manage to work so well, to convey some subtext or serve as commentary on what is happening on screen. I always think back to Jackson Browne's melodic "Late for the Sky" in Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver," the use of Iggy Pop's electrifying "Lust for Life" in "Trainspotting" or its more subtle use in "Desperately Seeking Susan." As far as commenting on the action, I am not sure if that is the case with the Fleshtones' "American Beat" song which is featured in a bizarre scene in 1984's "Bachelor Party" where sales clerks at a jazzy jean store called "Neon Jeans" dance to the tune. My favorite line of dialogue is when a customer is ready for checkout and the salesgirl says, "Can't you wait until the song is over?" Maybe that was the whole point - just wait for the song to be over and we will get back to the movie. Feel that American Beat.

I had the good fortune to discuss this and other Super-Rock Fleshtones matters with the one and only Peter Zaremba, the Fleshtones band member who sings, plays harmonica and the keyboards (for the uninitiated, the other band members include Keith Streng on guitar, Ken Fox on bass and Bill Mihizer on drums). He was also once the host of MTV's "I.R.S. Records Presents the Cutting Edge" from 1984-87. The Fleshtones, one of the best live bands on Earth, had played at the now defunct CBGB's in New York in 1976 and have been on the road ever since, even to this day. Mr. Zaremba took a few moments from his Spain tour to discuss the use of  the band's songs in films, his own treatment for a film that never got made, and his love for the theme of "Modesty Blaise."

1.) Tell me the story of having to re-record the song "American Beat" (original recording was in 1979) for the 1984 raunchy comedy, "Bachelor Party." I understand the issue of re-recording came down to rights to the song and, though I think it is a song that could've or should've been more commercially viable considering the box-office success of the film, I still do not get the connection of that song to that movie. I like when songs feature lyrics that in some shape or form relate to the film's themes or character arcs, but I do not see it with Tom Hanks as a lovable loser staging a bachelor party.

Peter Zaremba: 'I haven't thought about the exact circumstances for quite a while! Actually, we had gotten the rights back for the material we had recorded for Red Star already at that point. Miles had wanted us to rerecord Shadow Line for "Urgh! A Music War" and our first IRS album. Marty Thau was very reasonable about the whole thing and let us have all our songs back at a very low price as not to hold us up, and that included "American Beat," which of course I should have entitled "American Sound" but I was too clever by a half in those days. Anyway, Keith came up with the idea to rerecord the song with horns. Miles Copeland was working on that movie for Tom Hanks at that time. he was very involved in more than just the soundtrack. It's too bad the movie was already completed because when the director and producers heard "American Beat" they liked it so much they made it the 'theme' to "Bachelor Party" and said they would have had us perform the song in the movie if it hadn't been too late. They also used "Hall Of Fame." In typical Fleshtones fashion, we never built on that great 'in' to movie work because we manage to insult the director, the producers, Tom Hanks and everyone else by mocking the movie in front of them all during the studio screening. I think Keith also feel asleep during it, right next to Hanks who of course noticed. Hanks next film was "Splash,"  his real breakthrough into major box office star - "Bachelor Party"  actually did quite well for reasons I never understood. Oh well, it was great for us anyway. As to our songs connection to anything in the film well, you said it but it was cool that the film makers liked our music so much, up to that point!'


2.) Was an official soundtrack ever released for the crazy 1985 flick, "The Party Animal", and how did featuring songs like "Roman Gods" and "Right Side of a Good Thing" come into play for that film?

Peter Zaremba:  'I don't think there ever was an official album. Bob Singerman was our manager at that time and since we knew all these good bands with good tracks like REM and Smithereens, he got everyone on to the soundtrack. I wrote a theme song for it that the Fleshtones recorded, but the demo was so primitive that it was rejected. I rewrote the lyrics and we recorded it as "Whatever Makes You Happy" for both The Fleshtones and The Love Delegation.'

3.) I like that the soundtrack for 1986's "My Chauffeur" that features a sampling of your band's song "What's So New About You" in addition to "Tommy Gets his Tonsils Out" by the Replacements. Definitely an eclectic mix for a lighthearted movie. Is it a little more exciting to be featured in a soundtrack where another terrific band is featured, or were you unaware about who else was on the soundtrack?

Peter Zaremba: 'Oh that was Roberts again. He had a knack for getting these connections for a while. I have never seen the film, I thought it was soft core porno or something."

                                                          
4.) With the exception of 1996's "To Gillian On Her 37th Birthday" and 1987's "I Was a Teenage Zombie," the Fleshtones have not been featured in any other film soundtracks since. Or have they? Were there any other projects that had considered a sampling of your music? I keep thinking directors like Jim Jarmusch, Martin Scorsese, Todd Phillips, Oliver Stone and others might have benefited by using some of your band's music for their kamikaze, frenzied and perhaps lyrical filmmaking styles.

Peter Zaremba: 'What's the movie about Gillian's Birthday? Never heard of it. maybe it's a Streng song? (Note: Song "Let's Go" is used) Well to answer your question, no I don't think so although I do think our songs would be perfect for movies. I get really jealous when I hear all the cool songs in these movies by the directors you mention. Yeah, Jim Jarmusch, he was casting once at the Bayou Hotel in New Orleans when we were staying there, but we were too busy or shy or whatever to approach him . What was that movie he was shooting then? Down By Law? was that him? And Scorsese! I'd die to get into one of his movies, we'd fit right in! "Wolf Of Wall Street"? Sure. "Goodfellas"? Hell, we knew some of those people!

I wrote a treatment for a movie called "The Ghoulman." I thought it was pretty good actually and Robert sent it around to some Hollywood people who shop that kind of stuff I got. A great rejection letter back. It was so good that I titled the letter "critique of Ghoulman". I still have it somewhere. This woman really took the treatment apart point by point, but at least she seriously read the idea, maybe too seriously. Too ahead of its time. Of course many films of a somewhat similar vein have been done since then. Too bad, but it did have all these Ghoulman songs that we wound up recording. Oddly enough, the song "For A Smile" that we recently recorded with Mary Huff was also intended for that soundtrack, originally entitled "Johnny Go Wild." I intended it to be sung by the late Wendy Wild.

I don't think we've had a song perfectly used in a soundtrack yet, although I dug "I'm Back Again" coming out of a radio in "The Wire." Scorsese really uses rock and roll well. Keith has a track called Le Mistral, maybe THAT was used as a b side of a single or a vinyl only album track, anyway, I mixed that with movie theme use in mind. no takers....yet!

Hey I love the theme to "Modesty Blaise" (1966 spy comedy starring Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp) ever since I first heard it booming out of the speakers in the movie house as a kid. I like a lot of other stuff by Johnny Dankworth, like that song in the party scene in "Darling" (1965 film starring Julie Christie). I'd like to cover that, maybe in French!'

Noir wrapped in ivory silk

THE DEEP END (2001)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 2001)

I was stunned after seeing "The Deep End." Here is a film noir story with the machinations of the thriller genre but all wrapped in ivory silk, as if any and all cliches that could occur are withheld in the service of melancholia. This is noir that is not really bleak and a thriller that looks for behavioral characteristics to thrill us, all told with an absorbing sense of serenity that distinguishes it from most other thrillers.

The film begins with a jeep arriving at some undisclosed nightclub in Reno. A tall, lanky, red-headed woman warns a sleazy guy to stay away from her son. We are unaware of what the situation is but we know he represents sleaze and we know she is a worrisome mother. It turns out the mother's son, Beau (Jonathan Tucker), is having a homosexual affair with Darby Reese (Josh Lucas), the sleazy guy at the nightclub who owes a huge gambling debt. Beau's mother, Margaret (Tilda Swinton), wants him to stay away from Darby since all he represents is trouble. When Darby makes an unscheduled visit at their house in Lake Tahoe, Beau pleads with him to keep away. Darby will keep away if Margaret pays him $5,000. A fight ensues resulting in the accidental death of Darby. The next day Margaret finds the body and thus, the film's moral center takes over in an unusual, lyrical manner.

I will not say much more except that this serenely modest thriller is different from most Hitchcock thrillers in that usually the protagonist and the audience is aware of information that no one else is aware of. In this case, we know the truth behind the accidental death of Darby that no one else in the movie knows. Not even the seedy man from Reno knows (played by"E.R.'s" Goran Visnjic) who demands money to keep his mouth shut from what might be a potential murder. And Margaret does her best to keep calm and hide Darby's body. She wants to protect her son, her father-in-law, and her other son and daughter from the evils of the world, notably Reno.

Tilda Swinton is clearly the star of "The Deep End," imbuing the screen with a vitality and strength that is breathtaking to witness. I have only seen her in one other film, the magnificent "Orlando," but her performance here makes me want to pursue her earlier work. Perhaps even more so than Cate Blanchett, Swinton has a sense of authority as the doting, respectful mother that dominates the screen. It is no accident that the number of closeups in the film enhance her strong, magnetic presence. Interestingly, Swinton's Margaret seems to barely take notice of her children except for Beau - it is a family life where the father-in-law is more concerned about her than anyone else (including her unseen husband who is a Navy officer).

"The Deep End" is directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel III, who previously collaborated on "Suture." They have an uncanny eye for detail and savor appropriately breathless cinematic moments that never disrupt the pace or momentum. I found the shot of Swinton underwater while looking for car keys from Darby's body positively thrilling and unnerving to watch. Also look closely at framed shots of Swinton, usually seen from windows or from other obstructions (one extreme example is a fish-eyed lens shot reflected in a drop of water). Water and glass are prominently featured whenever Swinton's Margaret appears on screen and it nicely balances with the Lake Tahoe setting - prominent yet unassuming.

"The Deep End" is occasionally melodramatic towards the end and climaxes sooner than it should have. Still, a magnificent central performance by Swinton, not to mention an understated cast and a hauntingly lyrical tone that switches from engaging thriller to a heart-rending love story, more than makes up for it.