The Deep End is a 2001 American thriller film written, directed, and produced by Scott McGehee and David Siegel. It stars Tilda Swinton, Goran Visnjic, Jonathan Tucker, and Josh Lucas and was released by Fox Searchlight Pictures. The film was very loosely adapted from the novel The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (filmed in 1949 by Max Ophüls as The Reckless Moment). The film premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival where English cinematographer Giles Nuttgens won the Best Cinematography award.

Plot

Margaret Hall and her family live an upper middle class life in Lake Tahoe, California. She herself runs the household, which includes her three children and elderly father-in-law, as her Navy pilot husband is away on the aircraft carrier USS ''Constellation''. One day, she is startled to discover that her son Beau, a high school senior, has been having a sexual affair with 30-year-old Reno, Nevada, nightclub owner Darby Reese. Margaret visits Reese's nightclub, The Deep End, to demand that he stay away from her son. Reese demands $5,000 from her in exchange. That night, a drunken Reese secretly visits Beau and the two meet in the boathouse. Beau confronts him about asking his mother for money. The two argue, eventually coming to blows. As Beau returns to the house, Reese leans on a railing, causing it to collapse. He falls into the water, impaling himself on an anchor.