Cinema: The Deep End

Finally, a nifty twist: a blackmailer (Goran Visnjic, the hottie from ER) falls in love with his victim (Tilda Swinton). Actually, the idea is so old it’s new: this is a remake of Max Ophuls’ The Reckless Moment (1949). She’s trying to protect her son from a predatory lover who is accidentally killed; he’s an agent of evil too soulful for his own good. Their gripping story is told with sober conviction in this elegantly made, romantically doomy, curiously affecting movie.

–By Richard Schickel