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Movie Review: 'The Deep End of the Ocean' The lost years :'The Deep End of the Ocean' lovingly explores a mother's heartache Friday, March 12, 1999 By Ron Weiskind, Post-Gazette Movie Editor
"The Deep End of the Ocean" rides the whitecaps of its domestic tempest on an even keel, which results in both benefits and shortcomings.
Based on the novel by Jacquelyn Mitchard, "Deep End" begins with the disappearance of a 3-year-old boy. His family pulls together during the search and then nearly falls apart as it becomes clear that they will never know what happened to him.
Or will they? Nine years later, Beth Cappadora (Michelle Pfieffer) sees a boy at her front door and you can see the chill come over her. With her mother's intuition, she is sure it is her missing Ben. But his name is Sam, and he lives with his father a few blocks away.
Is she right? What had happened to him? Would he remember his birth family? Could he become a part of it again? And how would it affect them all?
Director Ulu Grosbard puts us right in the middle of it and yet maintains a certain detachment. We become observers at close range, able to see the nuances of change that run through the family like a seismic fault. But we can separate ourselves long enough to mull over their actions and think about whether we would react the same way to these events if, God forbid, they happened to us.
At best, Grosbard's objectivity achieves a tension that yields inevitably to grief in the immediate aftermath of Ben's disappearance. Everyone is spurred to action but, with each passing day, little by little, the effort flags just a little more. A car drives away as the camera pulls back on a tree-shaded residential street and we understand that life must go on - only Beth cannot.
On the other hand, the quiet despair of Beth Cappadora seems more suited to the intimacy of a TV movie of the week, the usual venue for domestic dramas of this sort, than to the larger, more public arena of the movie theater.
The Cappadoras are not the only people affected here. What about Sam's father (John Kapelos)? In a way, he relives the nightmare of the Cappadoras. I'm aware of the Hobson's choice that family courts often face, but surely someone in this case would have realized that there are other options.
Several characters outside the family need to be fleshed out more. But the biggest problem in Stephen Schiff's screenplay is the ending, which resolves things much too easily for all the heartache that has come before.
Still, it is a credit to both the filmmakers and the cast that we remain engrossed in the plight of the Cappadoras and that they seem like real people on whose lives we seem to be eavesdropping.
Pfeiffer convincingly communicates Beth's pain and anger, withdrawal and healing. Beth's husband, Pat (Treat Williams), is more demonstrative on the outside, more selfish on the inside. Whoopi Goldberg, as the police detective on their case, seems an odd choice at first but exudes down-to-earth authority and a needed dose of humor.
Maybe the most realistic characters are the kids themselves. Ryan Merriman balances Sam's confusion and hurt with his basically optimistic nature. Jonathan Jackson (Lucky on TV's "General Hospital") captures brother Vincent's alienation - both general teen-age angst and the specific instability within his family - with an ironic smirk and a matter-of-fact sensibility. Cory Buck as Vincent at age 7 has a gruffness that nicely foreshadows his older self.
By the way, if you want to know what the title refers to, you'll have to read the book. On this point, the movie leaves you at sea.
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Rating: PG-13 for language and thematic elements.