I never heard of a Jacquelyn Mitchard's book on which the movie is based but somehow something about Deep End of the Ocean has attracted my attention. After long searches last week I watched this movie on DVD and I have to say that I liked it, though maybe I liked in a different way than other movies. Although I don't rank this movie among my favorites I think Deep End of The Ocean is worthy of your attention and it definitely has its moments.
The story begins when we have a look at life of Beth Cappadora (Michelle Pfeiffer) a strong woman, who has an average, relatively successful and happy American family with three kids, but soon their life is falling apart because of an inexplicable disappearance of the youngest of their sons, three year old Ben (the other son, Vincent is seven). Everyone is blaming himself for such terrible loss and getting lost in their own feelings and emotions. While her husband Pat (Treat Williams) is trying to bring his family life back on normal tracks, Beth from the first look is suffered the most and using words of one of the characters she is "making career of being unhappy". After nine years of imitating a normal life they move into another city and one day they meet a boy, who lives in a neighborhood. Immediately they realize that he is their son, who they have lost many years ago but after such wondrous discovery the question is what will be a family's reaction as well what will be a reaction of a boy who doesn't remember anything about his real parents and family. So it's easy to notice that the movie consists of two parts, when first smoothly passes into second. The story is relatively good developed and is rather sad at parts, although I believe that overall Deep End of the Ocean is not enough emotional as a movie with such subject is supposed to be. I liked characters development in the movie except Michelle Pfeiffer's character Beth, which in my opinion is overly contradictory and complicated. Somehow such characters are common for Michelle and she is mainly coping with her part. Her husband, Pat, who is trying to restore lost connections looks much more convincing and Treat Williams's performance really impressed me. Finally, characters of two brothers, Vincent and Sam and relations between them are one of the strongest parts of the movie. Both Jonathan Jackson and Ryan Merriman are excellent at their characters and I have to say that I particularly liked the ending of the movie. Obviously some people could find this ending sappy and made for TV but I would certainly disagree with such an approach. Even if it was a little rushed the ending is very satisfying and contains the best (and the most memorable) scenes in the whole movie. This ending made me for some time forgot about any criticism I should notice some minor faults besides already mentioned in my review, which fortunately are unable to make an influence to my overwhelmingly positive impression of Deep End of The Ocean. Although, Ulu Grossbard's direction is mostly decent, some scenes are not so carefully made as most parts of the movie while some other parts (fortunately not many and not in the crucial points) as well as some dialogs are not free from using rather formulaic clichés. But I want to say once again that despite these minor notes of criticism (remember that nothing is perfect) I think Deep End of The Ocean is a pretty good movie, which deserves not to be missed.
My grade 8 out of 10
The story begins when we have a look at life of Beth Cappadora (Michelle Pfeiffer) a strong woman, who has an average, relatively successful and happy American family with three kids, but soon their life is falling apart because of an inexplicable disappearance of the youngest of their sons, three year old Ben (the other son, Vincent is seven). Everyone is blaming himself for such terrible loss and getting lost in their own feelings and emotions. While her husband Pat (Treat Williams) is trying to bring his family life back on normal tracks, Beth from the first look is suffered the most and using words of one of the characters she is "making career of being unhappy". After nine years of imitating a normal life they move into another city and one day they meet a boy, who lives in a neighborhood. Immediately they realize that he is their son, who they have lost many years ago but after such wondrous discovery the question is what will be a family's reaction as well what will be a reaction of a boy who doesn't remember anything about his real parents and family. So it's easy to notice that the movie consists of two parts, when first smoothly passes into second. The story is relatively good developed and is rather sad at parts, although I believe that overall Deep End of the Ocean is not enough emotional as a movie with such subject is supposed to be. I liked characters development in the movie except Michelle Pfeiffer's character Beth, which in my opinion is overly contradictory and complicated. Somehow such characters are common for Michelle and she is mainly coping with her part. Her husband, Pat, who is trying to restore lost connections looks much more convincing and Treat Williams's performance really impressed me. Finally, characters of two brothers, Vincent and Sam and relations between them are one of the strongest parts of the movie. Both Jonathan Jackson and Ryan Merriman are excellent at their characters and I have to say that I particularly liked the ending of the movie. Obviously some people could find this ending sappy and made for TV but I would certainly disagree with such an approach. Even if it was a little rushed the ending is very satisfying and contains the best (and the most memorable) scenes in the whole movie. This ending made me for some time forgot about any criticism I should notice some minor faults besides already mentioned in my review, which fortunately are unable to make an influence to my overwhelmingly positive impression of Deep End of The Ocean. Although, Ulu Grossbard's direction is mostly decent, some scenes are not so carefully made as most parts of the movie while some other parts (fortunately not many and not in the crucial points) as well as some dialogs are not free from using rather formulaic clichés. But I want to say once again that despite these minor notes of criticism (remember that nothing is perfect) I think Deep End of The Ocean is a pretty good movie, which deserves not to be missed.
My grade 8 out of 10