Click here to copy URL

The Deep End of the Ocean

5.6

4,099

Ratings

Add to lists

where to watch

Links

Original title

The Deep End of the Ocean

Year

1999

Running time

107 min.

Country

United States

Director

Ulu Grosbard

Screenwriter

Stephen Schiff. Novel: Jacquelyn Mitchard

Cast

Music

Elmer Bernstein

Cinematography

Stephen Goldblatt

Producer

Via Rosa Productions, Columbia Pictures, Mandalay Entertainment

Genre

Drama | Melodrama. Family Relationships. Kidnapping Film / Disappearance

Synopsis

Beth Cappadora (Michelle Pfeiffer), a photographer, is married to Pat (Treat Williams), a restaurateur, and they would seem to have a perfect life in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1988, they have three small children that Beth takes along to her high school reunion in Chicago. While checking in at a crowded hotel lobby, her middle child, three-year-old Ben, disappears. Despite a frantic search and much media coverage, the boy is not found, and Beth soon falls apart. Nine years later, the family has only barely recovered when they move to Chicago so Pat can open a restaurant with his father. A few months later, a neighborhood boy named Sam Karras (Ryan Merriman) knocks on the door, asking to mow the lawn. Beth notices the boy's appearance exactly matches a time-elapsed photo of Ben constructed by the police; she takes pictures of the boy and contacts both her husband and police detective Candy Bliss (Whoopi Goldberg).

Critics' reviews

"Engaging, often heart-wrenching drama (...) Pfeiffer and Treat Williams give such magnetic performances that they elevate the film way above its middlebrow sensibility and proclivity for neat resolutions."

Emanuel Levy: Variety
"A painfully stolid movie (...) the result is that awkwardness when characters express emotions that the audience doesn't share. (...) Rating: ★½ (out of four)"

Roger Ebert: Chicago Sun-Times
"Ends up insisting on pat and overly tidy resolutions that are at variance with the emotional chaos it's nominally attempting to convey"

Kenneth Turan: Los Angeles Times
"Two films in one: an intriguing child-disappearance mystery and an uncommonly affecting domestic drama realized by four terrific central performances."

Mike Clark: USA Today
"Pfeiffer digs into the role and won't let go. The rest of the movie is conventionally earnest."

David Denby: The New Yorker
"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"

Michael Sauter: Entertainment Weekly
"It's a classy but downbeat spin on the most familiar of TV-movie formulas"

Edward Guthmann: SFGATE
"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'"

Stephen Hunter: The Washington Post

Movie Soulmates' ratings: Register so you can access movie recommendations tailored to your movie taste.
Friends' ratings: Register so you can check out ratings by your friends, family members, and like-minded members of the FA community.

Is the synopsis/plot summary missing? Do you want to report a spoiler, error or omission? Please send us a message.
If you are not a registered user please send us an email to [email protected]

All copyrighted material (movie posters, DVD covers, stills, trailers) and trademarks belong to their respective producers and/or distributors.

For US ratings information please visit: www.mpaa.org www.filmratings.com www.parentalguide.org

User history

The Deep End of the Ocean

1999

Ulu Grosbard

5.6

(4,099)