User Reviews

For many years a somewhat obscure and unseen semi-avant garde melodrama,DEEP END has had a recent revival in digitally restored fashion in cinema,DVD and television,and has an undercurrent of strangeness running through it's entire oeuvre.Set in post-swinging 60's London,but an American/West German co-production directed by Polish-born Jerzy Skolimowski mostly filmed in Germany,with an eclectic cast and musical score,a dubious story and related characters.This overall oddness does not necessarily equate to greatness,but DEEP END still nevertheless manages to hold the attention throughout.

A decidedly gauche,awkward 15 year old youth,Mike (John Moulder-Brown) starts his first job at a grimy,dilapidated London municipal bathhouse,and falls in love with a beautiful but uninhibited female co-worker,Susan (Jane Asher),a few years older than him.Susan is apparently engaged but uses and exploits other males for her own pleasure,including the hapless Mike himself.The attraction gradually seems to become more mutual,if dangerous.

Coming at the end of the optimistic,happy-go-lucky 60's and populated with rather unlikable characters,DEEP END is packed with so much symbolism as to be in peril from drowning in it.The setting of the seedy,crumbling bathhouse is an obvious metaphor for being literally thrown into the deep rather than shallow end of life,with the related problems,frustrations and behaviour on show signifying this.For a while,DEEP END comes across as a familiar but wispily charming essay on the pains of growing up,with an amusing cameo from Diana Dors (who became a better actress as she got into early middle-age),holding Mike to her bosom while mumbling platitudes about football,though it's not long before it all becomes progressively darker,with dubious behaviour from a male swimming instructor (who Susan has a dalliance with) towards young female students,and an increasingly unhealthy relationship between Mike,so wet behind the ears as to be soaking,and the voluptuous Susan.

Moulder-Brown is fine as the hopelessly naive adolescent,though as with many teens his character's behaviour and traits often becomes very irritating,while Ms Asher is convincing as his and other males object of desire,outrageously sexy and knowing it,teasing and cajoling as many males as she can muster,mostly for her own entertainment and amusement in the skimpiest clothing imaginable.

With all this symbolism (such as Mike stealing a cardboard life size poster of Susan from London's underground) and semi-Freudian obsession,DEEP END has little in the way of plot,and much of the cast are not British but mainland European (mainly German).This sometimes gets in the way of authenticity for the more pessimistic mood of late 60's/early 70's London (not surprising as much of the film was apparently filmed in Munich),and Skolimowski often seems not to have an ear for the English language,with some scenes allowed to ramble with somewhat stilted dubbed and non-dubbed dialogue.There is much use of hand-held camera and other scenes which have an improvised feel,which is not necessarily a bad thing as said moments have a more spontaneous,humorous and natural feel to them.

Such locations as the bathhouse and Soho (which features a funny cameo from Burt Kwouk) add to a sense of decline and seediness while observing the dubious behaviour of the main and secondary characters involved,which inevitably leads to the climax in the swimming pool,with the symbolism at it's height as it being empty and drained of water,but there is a twist in store.....

With it's dreary,seedy setting and unsympathetic characters,DEEP END could have been utterly disposable,yet it's very style deem it oddly compulsive and curiously watchable,with it's best moments reserved for it's finale with haunting and extraordinary imagery that linger in the mind long afterwards,confirming it's reputation of being a bizarre,rediscovered cult classic.

RATING:7 out of 10.

Young Mike, fresh out of school and somewhat unworldly, gets his first job in a seedy public baths and swimming bath in an unnamed part of London. Showing him the ropes is Susan, a strikingly lovely redhead in her mid-20s, and well-versed in her abilities to make a few bob on the side from the, er, ancillary services which can be offered. Mike falls for Susan, hook line and sinker and Susan, well aware of this, derives some amusement from leading him on, little realising just how serious it is for him.

I saw this film a couple of times when it came out in 1970 and, now it has reappeared, it is interesting to watch it with eyes which are now nearly 60, and not 18. It is essentially a rather seedy kitchen sink drama, told with some humour and, ultimately tragedy.

At its heart are two performances. As Mike, John Moulder-Brown has the right fish-out-of-water look as the obsessed adolescent who hasn't got a clue but, for me, his performance never really convinces. However, as Susan, Jane Asher is a revelation. She made a successful transition from child to adult acting but then never seemed to pursue an adult screen career with commitment. On the strength of Deep End, this is a great loss: Susan, not a very nice person, is nonetheless nuanced with a multitude of emotional shades, and Asher is stunningly good.

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

An exceptional, unlikely coming-of-age film from Jerzy Skolimowski. John Moulder-Brown gets a job at a public bath house and is soon smitten with co-worker Jane Asher. Asher, who's seeing two other men, could care less. It's by no means straightforward. Instead DEEP END is gritty, funny, and ultimately tragic. That should be no surprise coming from the idiosyncratic Skolimowski. His films are always a mix of genres. Moulder-Brown is terrific as a the awkward adolescent and Asher has what is probably her best (certainly most substantial) film role. They have great chemistry together. There's also an oddball supporting cast including Erica Beer as the bath's bitchy cashier and one-time sexpot Diana Dors as one of Moulder-Brown's kinkier clients. Karl Michael Vogler gives a fine performance as one of Asher's callous lovers. The music is by Cat Stevens though its sparsely used.

Obviously a product of its time, this British film is a coming-of-age drama that focuses on a high school dropout who goes to work and a public bathhouse and find his first love, something that he's not ready to handle. The film documents his arriving to work on his bicycle, is meeting with the manager and him being shown what to do, is encounters with various customers and the obsession that grows to the girl he has a crush on.

John Moulder Brown does a fine job as the young man, pretty good for someone with little to no experience, and Jane Asher is very amusing as his feisty crush. Diana Dors is hysterical in a cameo, using the young Brown as a part of her sexual games then throwing him out with no emotion. This gives a good view of the "times, they are a changin'" era, free in many ways but heartbreaking for someone who can't handle it. But not all time capsules are successful, and I just got weird vibes looking in on this one.

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.

This is one of those films that is rarely seen today. I have no idea why. It is a fascinating film in many ways.

I was about the same age as the male lead, and at school, when this film came out and hadn't seen or heard about 'Deep End' until I read about it recently. The film is very evocative of my teenage years. The public baths, the pregnancy poster, the running shoes, shorts and vest, etc., all bring back clear memories. I was also happily surprised to hear (The) Can in being played on the soundtrack of the Soho scenes.

The film itself doesn't quite work. I'm not sure why and it doesn't make the individual scenes and characters any less fascinating. The cinematography is brilliant, the locations especially the grimy baths are well chosen and the startling use of colour such as the red paint, Susan's yellow coat, the white snow are well thought out and the story of an adolescent with a crush on a older, more experienced, somewhat unfeeling girl is not original but has its own unique aspects.

Asher is excellent as the femme fatale which makes me wonder why she wasn't given many more lead roles in important films. However, for me although John Moulder Brown nearly brings 'Mike' to life brilliantly but unfortunately because of his portrayal or the script the character doesn't quite ring true. The change in Mike from naïve youth to predatory stalker which occurs in various parts of the film and is one of the overall themes is not achieved subtly by either actor or script. This tend to lead the viewer to think perhaps there is schizophrenia involved which I'm sure isn't the intention. Although, perhaps, there is an aspect of split personality and potential for aspect to every 15 year old male so perhaps I'm being a little unfair.

All in all this is a film to watch for it's intriguing story and performances which haven't dated and for it's style which has dated but in a good way.