Tilda Swinton is riveting as Margaret Hall, a conscientious mom raising a family in Lake Tahoe who is entangled in a web of blackmail. While she frets over transporting her kids to ballet and baseball practice, she worries that her teenage son, Beau (Jonathan Tucker), is involved in a sleazy nightclub life in nearby Nevada. Margaret's husband is a Naval officer who is often away at sea, so she is alone in rearing her family. When Beau gets into a car accident with his gay lover, Darby (Joshua Lucas), after a night of partying in Reno, Margaret takes matters into her own hands and tells Darby to stay away from her son. A few days later Darby shockingly turns up dead next to her boathouse. Shortly thereafter, mysterious Alek (Goran Visnjic of the television series ER) comes to Margaret's door armed with an incriminating video of her son and Darby and threatens to go to the police if she doesn't pay him $50,000. The film's mystery and tension mount as the plot twists and turns--in one scene Tilda Swinton's captivating eyes frantically look on as the strangely tormented Goran Visnjic performs CPR in an emergency worthy of ER.

Directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee, famous for their inventive first feature, SUTURE, trade idiosyncrasy for atmosphere using Giles Nuttgens's fluid cinematography--which oozes with mystery in cool blues and refracted light--to set the frightening and suspenseful mood of THE DEEP END.