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Deep End of the Ocean, The
Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for language and thematic elements
Starring
Michelle Pfeiffer,
Treat Williams,
Whoopi Goldberg,
Jonathan Jackson,
Cory Buck,
Ryan Merriman,
Alexa Vega,
and
Michael McGrady
In the middle of a crowded hotel lobby Beth Cappadora (Pfeiffer) looks away for a moment-and in that moment lives every parent's nightmare when her three-year-old son Ben disappears. This film portrays the joyful and wrenching experiences of Beth and her husband Pat (Williams) when Ben mysteriously and miraculously reappears nine years later, at the age of twelve, a happily adopted child with no memory of his real parents. (Sony)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Stephen Schiff
Jacquelyn Mitchard (book)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Ulu Grosbard
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: March 6, 2001
Video: January 30, 2001
Theatrical: March 12, 1999
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
106 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
80
Variety
Emanuel Levy
Michelle Pfeiffer and Treat Williams give such magnetic performances that they elevate the film way above its middlebrow sensibility and proclivity for neat resolutions.
75
USA Today
Mike Clark
Two films in one: an intriguing child-disappearance mystery and an uncommonly affecting domestic drama realized by four terrific central performances.
70
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
So finely crafted, so alive with wonderful acting and an extraordinary commitment to realism that most audiences will be happy to surrender themselves to its improbable ride.
70
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
The emotional resolutions aren't pat, exactly. But they're not messy either, and for material this inherently volatile, that seems like a cheat.
67
Entertainment Weekly
Michael Sauter
If the film was less than satisfying as a big-screen event, it's still worth renting for Pfeiffer, who valiantly portrays the devastating complexities of grief and guilt.
63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Paced more like an action movie than a drama, and, when a pause finally occurs at the end credits, we realize that it hasn't been an altogether satisfying ride.
63
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
About two faces of healing.
60
Time
Richard Corliss
Pfeiffer restores honor to the family drama.
60
The New Yorker
David Denby
Pfeiffer digs into the role and won't let go. The rest of the movie is conventionally earnest.
60
The New York Times
Elvis Mitchell
Grosbard mercifully avoids melodrama -- the only real false notes are musical ones, from a score by Elmer Bernstein that turns familiar and trite when the film does not.
60
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Ends up insisting on pat and overly tidy resolutions that are at variance with the emotional chaos it's nominally attempting to convey. [12 March 1999, Calendar, p.F-1]
50
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Fans of Jacquelyn Mitchard's novel may find enough echoes of the book to justify the price of admission. But others can see this sort of thinly crafted melodrama in TV movies every week. For free.
50
TV Guide
Sandra Contreras
If the movie is remembered for anything, it will be for the feature-film debut of fiercely talented Jonathan Jackson: His performance truly transcends its dour setting.
50
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Should have worked on our emotions like a scalpel, made us cry and bleed. But, though it's an affecting, polished film, it's not satisfying. [12 March 1999, Friday, p.A]
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
The verdict is easy: Pfeiffer terrific, movie not.
50
Film Threat
Tom Meek
Heavy-handed melodrama that rises above its manipulative trappings on the solid performances of the cast.
50
San Francisco Chronicle
Edward Guthmann
It's a classy but downbeat spin on the most familiar of TV-movie formulas.
50
Austin Chronicle
Steve Davis
Never fully taps your empathy or your fears; it plays like a movie that's always about someone else.
50
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
The film ultimately gives in to a case of TV-movie blahs.
50
San Francisco Examiner
Wesley Morris
This is the kind of movie that mistakes heartbreak for being housebroken.
50
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Though director Ulu Grosbard is as good as he usually is with most of the actors, the story problems tend to stump him too.
40
Dallas Observer
Michael Sragow
Although the movie doesn't go in for quick fixes, it's not particularly revelatory or insightful. It's a textbook paradigm of grief, loss, and regrouping laid out in three acts.
40
LA Weekly
Manohla Dargis
It’s the sort of performance that announces itself with the subtlety of a lit-up highway construction sign. Caution: Actress at Work.
38
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
A painfully stolid movie that lumbers past emotional issues like a wrestler in a cafeteria line, putting a little of everything on his plate.
30
Slate
David Edelstein
I'm genuinely of two minds about the picture. I want to say it's subtle, but I also want to say it's heavy-handed. I want to say it's incisive, but I have too many problems with its psychological elisions to let it off the hook.
20
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
It's not the implausibility of its plot, the shallowness of its characters, its funereal pace, its tenuous understanding of teenage behavior, its commercial-ready TV-movie-style direction, or the fact that Pfeiffer and Williams may be the most implausible Italian-Americans since James Caan -- the film is most undone by its near-complete lack of genuine drama.
10
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
It has the overwhelming stench of a film afflicted by star ego -- Michelle Pfeiffer is never wrong, which is exactly what is wrong with The Deep End of the Ocean.
10
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
The movie's a floating longboat that ought to be ignited and pushed out to sea, Viking style.
 The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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