Howard Schumann Jerzy Skolimowski's masterful 1970 film Deep End went under the radar for half a century until a recent DVD release revealed its treasures. Deep End looks like but is not a coming-of-age film. The two main protagonists, 15-year-old Mike (John Moulder Brown) and 24-year-old Susan (Jane Asher), unfortunately never come of age. Neither is it a so-called black comedy, a horror film, or a surreal, dreamlike exercise in teenage angst, though it has elements of all of them. It is basically unclassifiable but is definitely closer in tone to Clockwork Orange than to The Graduate.Darkly erotic and sexually ambiguous, the film opens with a vision of dripping red paint backed by the music of Cat Stevens singing "But I Might Die Tonight." Mike, a high-school dropout, has gone to work as a pool attendant at Newford Baths, a sleazy and deteriorating public pool that is filled with middle aged patrons looking for something other than a swim. Having been accosted by a bosomy, obese middle-aged woman (Diana Dors) for her own pleasure, Mike realizes that his first job experience may not look good on his resume. The boy's interest is channeled to his co-worker Susan who reassures him that harassment by patrons is just part of the job, one that could lead to some liberal tips.A part of the job he had not bargained for, however, is his growing infatuation and obsession with the 24-year-old Susan, who has a fiancé (Christopher Sandford) and boyfriend, a married former high school teacher (Karl Michael Vogler), and also may just be an expensive call girl. Their relationship starts out full of fun and brotherly concern but it starts to turn creepy when he follows his mentor and her date to a porno movie and starts annoying her by touching her breasts. When her boyfriend alerts the manager, she thrills him when with a kiss on the lips just before he is ushered out of the theater.When Mike steals her poster found at a Soho strip club and attempts to compete in a footrace against runners at his old school, where he was himself a celebrated athlete, we know that the deep end is not far away. Mike's lust for Susan begins to include stalking and threatening and we begin to realize that his out-of-control emotional immaturity is the stuff of impending tragedy. Beginning and ending with the silence and comfort of water, the powerful and unsentimental Deep End may make you think twice before going for a swim.

tieman64 Jerzy Skolimowski's "Deep End" stars John Brown as a young Londoner who takes up work at a local bath house. Here he meets and becomes infatuated with a beautiful woman, played by Jane Asher."Deep End's" use of colour would be praised by a young David Lynch, whose own "Blue Velvet" would be heavily influenced by its coming-of-age plot. Skolimowski's film is one of beautiful night time photography, raw acting, young, nervous energy, a palette which alternates between drab and bold colours and many interestingly sleazy locales. It's a film heavy on mood and atmosphere.Released in the middle of the sexual revolution, Skolimowski's cast of men and women, girls and boys, are all shown to be adept at games of control and domination. The film's bathhouses are rigidly divided by sex, its cubicles and halls all zones of contestation for predators and prey alike. Jane's character is herself both a fetishized object of desire, continually used and debased by men, and a headstrong woman who toys with others. A working-class variation of Diana Scott (Julie Christie) in "Darling", she plays with the affections of multiple male suitors and effortlessly uses sex as a bargaining chip.Toward the film's end, Skolimowski has John dive into a pool with a one dimensional, cardboard cutout of Jane, the scene suggesting something about John's deeply submerged, unconscious desires. Later he withholds a diamond stud from her, subtly forces her to sleep with him, and then kills her when the disappointing reality of the experience fails to live up to his idealisations. It's here when we realise to what extent the film has implicated its own male audience; Skolimowski forces us to consider what exactly we're rooting for and where exactly, if anywhere, our allegiances lie.The film mixes surrealism with a delirious, dreamy tone. Its acting is stilted but this only heightens Skolimowski's dream-like atmosphere. Here, the sexual revolution is presented as a sham, or perhaps something unfulfilling at best, dangerous at worst.Though set in Britain, the film was extensively shot in Germany and was directed by the Polish Skolimowski, who after running afoul of the Polish government with his anti-Stalinist allegory, "Hands Up!", relocated to England in the hope of finding artistic and commercial success.8.5/10 – A classic of British cinema. See "Walkabout", "A Swedish Love Story" and "Darling".

Kenneth Anderson I'm all for films with unique, personal perspectives of the seamier side of life, but I'm baffled at reviews that describe "Deep End" as a coming-of-age story. Only if the boy coming of age is Norman Bates. This look at the disturbingly creepy fascination a 15 year-old bathhouse worker (John Moulder-Brown) develops for his hardened but lovely co-worker (Jane Asher), "Deep End" struck me more like "Taxi Driver: The Teen Years." I haven't read much that details the film as a psycho-sexual drama that depicts the gradual unraveling of an already damaged teen's psyche. Sort of a non-sensationalistic / art house "Who Killed Teddy Bear." What I have read are baffling accounts as to how the film so accurately captures male teen sexual awakening. Yikes! I don't care how many hormones are raging, the young man at the center of the film is not just your average adolescent with an obsessive crush on an older co-worker. He's nothing short of batty from the first frame. He's exceedingly socially retarded and hasn't the coping skills of a four year old. What I think is supposed to be the awkward first steps of sexual attraction are so downright odd that he comes off every bit like a sexual predator in training.I simply found it impossible to relate to the played-for-laughs creepy antics of the lead. He's not love struck, he's dangerous.Adding further to the intentionally distasteful vibe of the film is the perhaps unintentionally pervasive air of misogyny that hangs over the entire film. I know we're supposed to be seeing the world through this boy's eyes, but the women in the film are portrayed unvaryingly as: whores, teases, users, terrifying, or grotesques. I think the skill of the director and the natural performances he has extracted from his cast has created an "Emperor's New Clothes" situation here. "Deep End" is decidedly accomplished in creating a seamy view of London akin to what Scorsese would do later in "Taxi Driver", but however well- observed, no one should take this look at a budding sexual psychotic as an image of puberty run wild. Not a love story and not a story about sex. It's a horror film.

preppy-3 15 year old Mike (John Moulder-Brown) gets a job as a towel boy in a seedy British bath house. He becomes obsessed with co worker Susan (Jane Asher) who seems to egg him on but she has two boyfriends of her own. He becomes more and more obsessed and it leads to a disturbing ending.Depressing and dirty (you feel like taking a shower after watching it) but undeniably powerful. There isn't one likable character in the film--Mike is obviously disturbed and Susan comes across as a real bitch--but you can't stop watching. The imagery, the acting and clever mixtures of sound had me mesmerized. Asher has a risky role playing a horrible woman who's teasing a 15 year old and using two other guys but she does manage to show that she isn't totally evil. However Moulder-Brown really holds the entire movie together. He was 19 when he did this (and looks it) but he convincingly acts like a 15 year old boy who can't control his lust for an older woman. Also both of them have nude scenes but they're not the least bit erotic. However they ARE necessary for the integrity of the story. Also Diana Dors is very funny in a small cameo as a woman who REALLY likes football! I can honestly say I'll probably never see this again--it's WAY too depressing--but I don't deny it's incredible to watch.