It appears that either this movie works for you or doesn't. It worked for me for several reasons, not the least being the great performance by Tilda Swinton as Margaret, an upper-middle-class mother with an obsessive desire to protect her son. Swinton projects the image of a woman who can handle any situation; blackmail, the revelation of her son's sexual orientation, the notion that her son may be a murderer, taking care of her aging father-in-law, and running the family are all in a day's work. I was drawn into the story by the beautiful photography, the captivating music, and the plot twists. For whatever reason I did not dwell on plot holes but simply allowed myself to be absorbed. And, if you accept Margaret's almost pathologically obsessive devotion to her family, then most of what happens hangs together.

I found the unexpected relationship that develops between Margaret and the blackmailer to be interesting. The experience is more transformative for him than for her. I also like the way the tables were turned on the relationship between Margaret and her spoiled son. In the beginning his behavior was confusing to Margaret and he was not willing to talk about it and in the end Margaret's behavior was mysterious to her son and she was not willing to talk about it.

It was only the contrived ending that bothered me.

Tilda Swinton's son, Jonathon Tucker, is a homosexual trumpet player about to enter college on a scholarship, but she knows nothing about his sexual proclivities. (I think; I missed the first few minutes.) Swinton's husband is a naval officer on an extended trip overseas. The family home is a comfortable dwelling on the shore of Lake Tahoe, on the Nevada side.

A man approaches her, informs her of Tucker's sexual activities, and threatens to expose him unless she hands over fifty thousand dollars. Shove comes to push, the extortionist falls off the dock, lands on the upright flukes of an anchor, and is killed.

The hysterical Swinton dumps his body in the lake, where it's promptly found by an unlucky fisherman. Swinton is then visited by still another blackmailer, a handsome young man, not unsympathetic. But the big boss behind the scam is pitiless and wants the whole boodle, which Swinton is unable to raise, due to the absence of her husband.

Thereafter it gets twisted. The evil die, while the good flourish as the green bay tree.

It would have been a good black-and-white B movie from Warners in the 1930s or 1940s -- blackmail scheme goes awry. What lifts it out of that particular genre are two things.

The presence and the performance of Tilda Swinton, which is really quite good. Her features are idiosyncratic. Her rather ordinary face features these startlingly blue eyes topped by brows so pale that they make La Giocanda look like Salma Hayek. They're both piercing and terrified. And she's a fine actress, judging from this film, despite her being barely handsome enough to serve as romantic lead without a big do-over.

The second thing is the location shooting at Lake Tahoe. It's immediately identifiable for where it is. Those granite rocks of the Sierra Nevada are unmistakable. But, with a little suspension of belief, it could be a fairy-tale Switzerland. But don't even think of living in Lake Tahoe. You couldn't afford a pup tent.

It's worth seeing -- at least once.

Tilda Swinton as a determined mom attempting to cover up--against all possible odds--the accidental killing of a man at the hands of her gay son. Adapted from Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's novel "The Blank Wall", previously filmed in 1949 as "The Reckless Moment", "The Deep End" is a somber and stylish suspense-drama, but perhaps it was due to having two directors, Scott McGehee and David Siegel (also the co-adaptors of the screenplay),that the film feels overstuffed, unwieldy. Swinton's performance is everything it should be and has to be: she's both focused and frazzled, crazed and in control. Her character is a straightforward woman forced into taking short-cuts, and it doesn't allow Swinton any of the eccentric flourishes the actress has become known for on the indie film circuit. Still, even somewhat muted, Swinton delivers; in fact, she's the whole picture. The production is fine and the film's ambience is narcotizing, yet the script is full of ready-made coincidences--the outlandish kind which eventually formulate into what critic Roger Ebert dubbed "the idiot plot." Overall, a gripping and unnerving movie, but this mainly due to the work of its leading lady, not the script nor the handling. **1/2 from ****