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Deep End (1971) More at IMDbPro »

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20 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
Great Unique Sleeper, 20 July 2000
10/10
Author: jlabine from San Francisco

I had been searching for this gem for nearly 15 years, until I found it. When I did, it was as good as I imagined! The film follows the adolescent obsession of a 15 year old (John Moulder Brown) seedy (Newford) Bath House attendent. He falls under the romantic spell of a red haired tease (brilliantly played by Jane Asher), that toys with his emotions to the brink of taking him over the mental "deep end". Director Jerzy Skolimowski's film is so unique that it deals with the mind set of a sexually inexperienced youth in a way that is comedic, sensitive, and yet totally insane. Parts of the character reminded me of a darker Max Fletcher (the child character in "Rushmore") and a less calculating Tom Ripley (see "The Talented Mr. Ripley"), but totally immerssed in a Mod London invironment that is saturated in sex and seediness. What strikes me as interesting, is that you can never tell if London was meant to be represented in such a sexual red light, or if this is all just how the protaganist views London with sexually curious eyes of puberty? My one criticism towards John Moulder Brown is his English accent tends to sound more proper rather than lower class Cockney, which would have suited the story's angle. Jane Asher's performance however is truly amazing! Her use of the dialog, is completely naturalistic in approach. I always feel as an eavesdropper to someone's private conversation. Check out the scene in which her and John Moulder Brown are trying to retrieve a diamond from a pile of snow, and sprinkled in the dialog are comments of her being hungry (it would seem strange to see those lines written in the script, which leaves me to think it may be improvised?). And when she tells off the Gym Teacher (one of her lovers) and then continues to work on finding her diamond. Totally improvised and naturalistic!!! As a person like myself who studies acting, I was quite impressed by her acting, and am saddened that she has not appeared in more films (she seems to be mostly known for being the ex-girlfriend of Paul McCartney). The music soundtrack to the film is of great interest as well. It contains the song "But I Might Die Tonight" by Cat Stevens as the title track, and different variations of that theme supplied by either Cat Stevens or (Kraut rock group) Can. It also contains one of Can's most amazing tracks "Mother's Sky" in a great scene where the boy stalks his obsession to a London Club, then to a seedy Nude Girl joint which contains a cardboard cut out of her, then to an out-of-commision prostitute, and then finally to the London Underground where he confronts Jane Asher. All done with the surreal mind, of what only a 15 year old could conjure up. The film contains many surreal moments, in which the boy sinks to the bottom of a pool and eyes a naked woman swimming underneath him. Or when the boy jumps off a diving board and lands on top of the cardboard cut out in a pool. He again sinks to the bottom holding the cut out as if it was her. This film captures the complete frustration of that age, and the yearning to be a part of the sexually grown up world that is just out of reach, but keeps getting dipped towards your hands by a taller, more mature (?) tease. Unfortunately, teasing an imature boy can also have very horrible consequences. Highly recommended!!! One of my all time favourite films!!! I give it a 10!!

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11 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Once seen, never forgotten, 28 August 2001
Author: grantch (piqueroi@mac.com) from United States

Deep End, along with The House That Screamed, has immortalized John Moulder-Brown in my memory. I saw Deep End but twice ... once on its first release and a couple of years later in Copenhagen, but it is a unique movie which sticks in the memory and cannot be forgotten. With the advent of DVD, surely a company like Anchor Bay should resurrect this engrossing drama. Jane Asher is terrific. And former beauty Diana Dors is a hoot in her cameo appearance. Deep End remains three decades later one of my all-time favorite films.

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12 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Look for this one, 8 January 2005
Author: lazarillo

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This is an interesting little film which to my knowledge has never been released on video or DVD in the US. It's about a 15-year-old working-class boy who goes to work in a London bathhouse (catering to some truly unattractive customers). He falls in love with a slightly older female co-worker with ultimately tragic results. This film is a neo-realist look at working-class Britons in a seedy setting one would hardly recognize as Swinging London (made years before anyone had ever heard of Mike Leigh). It's also one of the few films about the sexual initiation of a young male that is neither a saccharine Hollywood "coming of age" story nor stupid sexploitation comedy. It is pretty funny in parts such as when then lead steals a life-size cardboard cut-out from a sex shop because he is convinced it is his co-worker, but it also shows the painful and even destructive side of male puberty.

John Moulder-Brown (from "La Residencia") is very convincing as the youth who looks much older, but if anything is even less emotionally mature than the usual boy his age. Jane Asher is also pretty good, but her character is less believable. For one thing Asher, a model/actress who was a one-time girlfriend of Paul McCartney, is a little too attractive and glamorous to convincingly play this role. But the character herself is a little ill-defined. She's obviously a social climber with an upper-middle class boyfriend who takes her to swinging clubs and buys her an expensive diamond ring, but she cheats on him with a lecherous, middle-aged and married swimming coach and a fifteen year old. (This WAS Swinging London, but she doesn't seem really seem like the "free love" type). And she's such a malicious tease she even devours ice cream in front of a fat woman. The ending would have been even more powerful if we cared about her as well the boy (although there is a revelation about her and the swimming coach near the end that softens the picture of her a little).

The Polish director was a friend and protégé of Roman Polanski. He does a remarkable job here particularly with the visually impressive final scene with the two naked actors in an empty swimming pool slowly filling with water. I guess this was once a minor cult movie--I first heard about it in Danny Peary's "Cult Movies" book. It's unfortunately pretty forgotten today, but definitely worth finding.

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8 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Why Can't I get a copy?!!!, 23 December 2006
10/10
Author: pete_r_higgins from United Kingdom

This was one of the most influential movies in my life, awakened me to many things including the beauty of good camera-work and multi-layered scripting. A seemingly simple 'coming-of-age' story, highly sexually charged and with deeply significant climax. Why is it impossible to get a copy in the UK of this UK movie, when it seems it is also shown a lot on TV in other countries, yet never in the UK! Crazy! This seems to be just another example of how we Brits constantly put ourselves down, forget about our good work which influences others and are generally our own worst enemies! I guess I have to make a trip to Canada to buy a copy......... and a DVD that will play it!:¬)()

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6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
My life in the "Deep End," and yours, too, 21 March 2007
Author: fastfilmhh from Los Angeles

Okay, here's a cine-challenge. There are some films that take you back to a particular time in your life at absolute warp speed. Frequently, these films are reasonably universal, but their associations might be obfuscated, personal and subjective, never understood even by your friends unless explained. One such film, which chronicled absolute obsessive teenage love and its destructiveness was a wake-up call to a frequent, formerly obsessive type, myself in my misspent youth. This and the film's innate mastery instantly time-travel me back to days that were simultaneously more innocent and more complicated than today, late night smoky college discussions in a candle-lit apartments.

And that film would be "Deep End" directed by Jerzy Skowlimowski, pal of Roman Polanski, with the same great mix of bizarre sensibilities and takes on life, done in professional, Hollywood-caliber production, even if on an indie budget.

It's from 1970, featuring music by Cat Stevens (Yusef Islam now to the non-infidel) and two unbelievably strong leads: a 15-year-old John Moulder Brown and 25-year-old Jane Asher (Paul McCartney's 1960's trophy girlfriend.) I never even knew Asher had these acting chops: she outdoes Susan Sarandon (similar upper class background) for letting us in on the nuances of a naturally pretty, fairly low-class young person. Moulder-Brown was the go-to kid for late 60's/early 70's films that required a teen to actually act. (Both are still working, happily.)

This is a dance of death pas de deux between a teen boy working at a grimy public pool in Britain, all hormones and eagerness, and his slightly older female co-worker, who's both a beauty and a inveterate tease. These two should never have been allowed to work together, as he quickly fixates on her, stalks her, and she tries to control the situation with her normal, over the top sexual flirting. It's pretty light and entertaining for a while, then it goes south. . . The title is "Deep End," after all. I've rarely seen a such a disturbing, creepy film about young lust that still has you rooting for everyone involved, no matter how wrongly they both behave. That's the sign of a sure cinematic touch.

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7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Well done, 14 June 2004
Author: Katie

Surreal,clever and well acted ,but eventually dark and disturbing film. I watched it because it came on television,without knowing what is what about.I would never normally watch a film like this but was engrossed the whole way through.The two leads are fascinating characters and you assume the main lead mike is just an innocent admirer of the young woman he works with,and the young woman a sexual mentor of sorts.I first thought that the film was just about a schoolboy crush.The film is very sex orientated ,there is a lot of clever camera work and cinematography.Having never watched a film from the 70's i was surprised by how much more artistic,clever and interesting it looked compared to today's films. The end of the film comes as a big big shock to the unexpecting.

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7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
A young bath attendant develops a passion for his young female colleague., 11 December 2003
Author: PaulMichael from Oxford, England

Fifteen-year-old Mike (John Moulder-Brown) has just left school and starts a new job as a Public Baths attendant, under the wing of Susan (Jane Asher) - a streetwise twenty-something female attendant. Susan knows how to please the clients and advises Mike accordingly. A typical encounter is when he substitutes for Susan in tending to a female client (Diana Dors) who forces her attentions upon him. He quickly develops a crush on Susan that soon becomes an obsession as he stalks her around town. Jealous of anyone else who gives her attention, he is particularly incensed at her casual affair with his former sports teacher. In an attempt to promote himself, Mike hijacks a school cross-country run in the park. Observed by Susan, they engage in a playful tussle where she loses the diamond from her engagement ring in the snow. Gathering the snow, they return to the empty baths to find the diamond by melting the snow. In an unguarded moment, Mike attempts to seduce Susan but cannot follow through. His jealousy and exclusive desire reaches new proportions...

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5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
A fabulously raw, gritty and admirably unsentimental teen coming-of-age knockout, 9 October 2006
9/10
Author: Woodyanders (Woodyanders@aol.com) from The Last New Jersey Drive-In on the Left

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This earthy, unromanticized and fiercely unmawkish coming-of-age adolescent angst sleeper centers on awkward, gangly, sexually frustrated virginal blue collar klutz Mike (exceptionally played to moody, ungainly, temperamental perfection by "Vampire Circus" 's John Moulder-Brown), who gets a job as an attendant at a seedy bathhouse. Mike falls madly (and badly) in obsessive love/lust with loose, worldly and assured co-worker Susan (an excellent portrayal by enticing redhead looker Jane Asher), a wild and uninhibited sort whom the other employees hold in disregard. Alas, Mike's crush on Susan isn't shared by the flattered, but disinterested object of his increasingly batty desire.

Set in a very seamy, downcast and markedly unswingin' early 70's slum district of London (one wonderfully delirious sequence takes place in a garishly trashy Times Square-like urban cesspool area), this remarkably fine film is more notable not for what it does, but for what it refreshingly doesn't do: there's no crude sophomoric humor or cheap goopy sentiment, the picture doesn't cop-out with a phony baloney everything-works-out-quite-nicely happy ending, the characters are extremely complex and not always appealing (e.g., the initially endearing Mike becomes less likable and more obnoxious as the story unfolds), and a firmly droll and wry, albeit still fairly sympathetic tone is deftly maintained throughout. Director/co-screenwriter Jerry Skolimowski expertly creates a richly textured and utterly plausible lived-in dreariness and tawdriness, punctuating the basically sober mood and grimy authenticity with occasional moments of hilariously bawdy humor (former 50's blonde bombshell Diana Dors has a sidesplitting cameo as an overweight, aggressively libidinous middle-aged frump who brings herself to an intense orgasm by talking excitedly to Mike about soccer). The bathhouse regulars are especially well-drawn: they're lonely, crotchety, down on their luck everyday folks who are desperate for attention and affection. Charly Steinberger's polished, yet naturalistic cinematography masterfully uses the color red to convoy a wealth of emotions: rage, anger, passion, confusion and ultimately despair. Terrific pounding proto-heavy metal score by Cat Stevens and the Can, too. A sadly forgotten and undervalued gem.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Somewhere Between THE GRADUATE and HAROLD AND MAUDE, 7 February 2008
10/10
Author: Fred (thurberdrawing@yahoo.com) from Long Island, USA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Warning: This review has spoilers. (Vague spoilers, but spoilers, nevertheless!) I just saw this yesterday (February 6th, 2007) at one of the best art cinemas in the world, Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, New York. It was the one showing of DEEP END at this theatre. It qualifies as a scarce film. I think the Cinema could have played this for a week and word of mouth would have brought people back. Anyway, it played somewhere in New York City a few months ago. Apparently, it is virtually impossible to find on DVD or even VHS. It's got really good acting. Jane Asher's great and so is John Moulder-Brown as her personal Werther, always following her around and pleading with her to drop her fiancée. I am not being ironic when I say this is similar to THE GRADUATE and HAROLD AND MAUDE. All three movies involve swimming pools inhabited by an angst-ridden young man. All of them feature a young man being talked to in condescending ways by authority figures who don't realize they are being condescending. Each one involves a desperate search for reciprocal love. Cat Stevens did music for both DEEP END and HAROLD AND MAUDE. Of course, Simon and Garfunkel nailed the movie music thing with THE GRADUATE'S soundtrack, perhaps the definitive rock soundtrack for a movie. Cat Stevens's performance of the song "But I Might Die Tonight" is different from the one on his famous album TEA FOR THE TILLERMAN. The performance of the song in the movie is almost shockingly anti-social. (I also think he may have written the song just for the movie, inasmuch as, at one point, a bureaucrat tells the young man, "Someday, if you apply yourself, you might be sitting behind this desk!" In the Cat Stevens song, the singer sings "Work hard boy/you'll find/one day you'll have a job like mine.") While it certainly was filmed while London was swinging, this is not about sexual liberation. It's about a boy trying to persuade a girl to stay in her social class. She's climbing. He is not. While she is not climbing high, it is enough to drive him mad.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Really rare, really powerful, really necessary, and really amazing movie, 14 September 2008
10/10
Author: Polaris_DiB from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I may be getting out of line, here, but there's a point in most male adolescent development for the search for sex takes on an overly aggressive, practically sadistic aspect that is for the most part entirely contrary and disturbing, so that it's hardly often mentioned except as one of those "confused thoughts" that teen men get. This time of life is usually quickly passed; barely anybody acts on those impulses because its too seedy and antisocial, most boys outgrow it, and the majority of them end up having other, more positive formative experiences that allows them to leave that part of themselves behind. Nevertheless, the obsessive quality of male sexual development is not all that often given its own movie, as the results are as disturbing as this one. Jerzy Skolimowski writes and directs a movie about a 15 year old boy who, having been thrust into the work place and a world of underlying sex and violence he doesn't comprehend, loses all sense of social normative awareness and quite literally goes off the deep end.

Mike (John Moulder-Brown) is out of school and gets his first job. He's immediately smitten by the ten-year-older Susan (Jane Asher) who, unfortunately for Mike, is a confused aged-beyond-her-years tease and man-user who has no real way of interpreting the world around her except by sleeping and flirting with other men for her gain: her fiancé because he's rich, even if he is a tool and ridiculously clueless; her ex-swim coach because he's older and has given her a job; and now Mike because of his persistence and insistence in getting her attention and approval.

With no other life to distract him, no money to support him, nothing but his low-class existence and his desire for Susan, Mike quickly goes from a crush to confused love to stalking to outright obsession, with absolutely no awareness of the negative effect of his actions. This all, keep in mind, is set in 70s England, where law enforcement is ridiculously incompetent, sexual taboos have gone past being broken to being downright dysfunctional, and social confusion and decay has set permanently into the mold of the city. Everything is seedy, dirty, and disturbingly sexualized. Movie theatres offer ridiculous porn, clubs that couples go to are adult clubs, and the lower classes essentially wander the streets looking for things to blow their load on (monetarily and otherwise). British cinema is typically soaked in class consciousness, and Jerzy shows his affinity for that awareness even if he's not British himself.

This movie is a masterpiece. The cinematography is beautiful, with some of the most profound changes in the story saturated in red, a lot of shifting light values, and camera movements that get the viewer stuck into the head of little Mike, especially in one superb set-up in the veranda of an adult club, a moment as profound, unbalanced, and nauseating as the movie eventually becomes as a whole. The acting is beyond superb, and led by a script that manages to make some of the most dreadful people into relatable, tear-inducing tragic characters. Mike is driven to symbolically (and maybe even "literally" works too) submerge himself into Asher's body (not that a blame him) and the psychosexual tumble into morbid insanity (that's where I do blame him for his actions) is even more compelling than even films like Vertigo. Music by Cat Stevens and The Can gives a suspenseful backdrop, and the mise-en-scene is laced with the pessimism felt subconsciously in the 70s.

Deep End is one of those movies of which I can understand completely why it's hard to come by: it strikes a little too closely to the most unmentioned, unacknowledged aspect of male fantasy, and it doesn't relieve any of it with comedy or a happy ending, preferring instead to close on a strikingly symbolic final shot with absolutely no credits to follow (read: no time to sit and collect one's self after viewing--in keeping with the Hitchcock comparison, think The Birds, only more realistic and damning). That said, it's honestly one of the best movies I've ever seen and should be much more well-known and appreciated, in my opinion. The screening I attended was introduced by the owner of the theatre who claimed that we were watching one of the only extant prints in the entire United States. I've seen quite a lot of rare and underground cinema over the past couple of years, but the knowledge of this movie's marginalization truly hits me in the heart. Hopefully it will keep passing on from theatre to theatre until somebody with a lot of disposable income and a little interest decides to give it a treatment to open it up to a larger audience. Maybe they weren't ready in the 70s to watch this. I don't think very many people are ready now. But hopefully it'll safely find a bigger audience.

--PolarisDiB

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