Deep End is so true to Life - for any teenage boy who becomes infatuated with an older (but young and sensual) woman who he then sees romantically with a chauvinistic and nasty man - he wants to 'save' her.
But where any of us ordinary young men would have long stopped their pursuance of justice, young Mike here takes things to the very end, fulfilling the dreams of us mere mortals. You know all along that he'll never get the girl, that's never in any doubt, but the madness as is pushes him further into trouble.
That Mike's (John Moulder-Brown) 15 and just out of school and his first boss is the gorgeous and sexually aware Jane Asher and his job entails attending to allsorts at some public baths, including some randy older women, no wonder his hormones are all over the place.
It all starts out as light-hearted nonsense (the incorrigible Diana Dors scene a real hoot) but gradually gets darker, to a jet black and tragic end. The ending is one of the most profound and well mounted that I've witnessed and every frame of it perfectly staged.
In between, we have the fumblings of a sexually naive lad, he who gets his first pay packet and it goes to his head, finding that the bright lights of a (pretend, film was shot in Munich) Soho turn his few pounds to mere pennies as he goes from club to club. But, all he's actually doing is stalking the girl that he works with, as he sees how her 'other', more glamorous life, away from the bleach and rubber gloves at the baths, is both lived - and funded.
True, John Moulder-Brown's acting lacks depth, or finesse, but imagine a 15 year old actually in those scenarios. He'd be even more blunt and less eloquent that Mike is in this.
As others have said, this is a true little gem of a film. How so much was actually said about human emotion in such a relatively short film is extraordinary. There were a few really good movies around at that time that covered similar-ish ground (Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom", for example) that weren't appreciated fully then, but seen perhaps as novelty voyeuristic films, only for the 'specialist' viewer. And, of course, thanks to the BFI for restoring it to a crystal-clear and beautiful print.
But where any of us ordinary young men would have long stopped their pursuance of justice, young Mike here takes things to the very end, fulfilling the dreams of us mere mortals. You know all along that he'll never get the girl, that's never in any doubt, but the madness as is pushes him further into trouble.
That Mike's (John Moulder-Brown) 15 and just out of school and his first boss is the gorgeous and sexually aware Jane Asher and his job entails attending to allsorts at some public baths, including some randy older women, no wonder his hormones are all over the place.
It all starts out as light-hearted nonsense (the incorrigible Diana Dors scene a real hoot) but gradually gets darker, to a jet black and tragic end. The ending is one of the most profound and well mounted that I've witnessed and every frame of it perfectly staged.
In between, we have the fumblings of a sexually naive lad, he who gets his first pay packet and it goes to his head, finding that the bright lights of a (pretend, film was shot in Munich) Soho turn his few pounds to mere pennies as he goes from club to club. But, all he's actually doing is stalking the girl that he works with, as he sees how her 'other', more glamorous life, away from the bleach and rubber gloves at the baths, is both lived - and funded.
True, John Moulder-Brown's acting lacks depth, or finesse, but imagine a 15 year old actually in those scenarios. He'd be even more blunt and less eloquent that Mike is in this.
As others have said, this is a true little gem of a film. How so much was actually said about human emotion in such a relatively short film is extraordinary. There were a few really good movies around at that time that covered similar-ish ground (Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom", for example) that weren't appreciated fully then, but seen perhaps as novelty voyeuristic films, only for the 'specialist' viewer. And, of course, thanks to the BFI for restoring it to a crystal-clear and beautiful print.