Overview
“Deep End” is a 1970 British–West German coming-of-age drama film. Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski from Poland. Starring Jane Asher and John Moulder-Brown. Set in London, the film depicts a boy’s love for an older woman. 92 minutes.
Plot
A 15-year-old, working-class boy, Mike (John Moulder-Brown) drops out of school and gets a job as an attendant at a suburban public bath with a swimming pool in London.
He becomes attracted to his colleague at work and an older woman, Susan (Jane Asher). Susan finds he is still a virgin, and she treats him as a child.
Though Susan has a fiancé named Chris (Chris Sandford), she also has an affair with an older, married man (Karl Michael Vogler), who is a swimming instructor of the pool and was Mike’s physical education teacher. Mike falls in love with Susan, and he starts stalking her.
Mike secretly follows Susan going with Chris to an X-rated movie theater and nightclub.
Finding Susan having a fling with the PE teacher in a vacant bathroom, Mike smashes the emergency bell button of a fire warning system to disturb them.
On the night Mike received his salary for the first time, while watching for Susan in front of the nightclub she entered with Chris, he finds and steals a life-size cardboard cutout of a naked girl, who resembles Susan, at the entrance of a strip club.
Following Susan, Mike rides on a subway train, and he asks her whether she posed for the nude photo, but she teasingly makes an ambiguous reply.
On a snowy Sunday, Susan comes to the venue for a long-distance running competition of the school to meet the PE teacher. Mike enters the race without permission, and he punctures the tires of the teacher’s car. When Susan strikes him in anger, she drops and loses the diamond from her engagement ring in the snow. Mike and Susan try to find the diamond by melting the mass of snow in the empty pool.
Commentary
“Deep End” is a coming-of-age film masterpiece that humorously depicts the sexual obsession in adolescence.
The film was shot in Munich and London. The indoor scenes were shot in Munich. The scene in the pool and outdoor scenes were shot in London (Soho, Leytonstone).
The starring actress Jane Asher had also been known as the lover of Paul McCartney in the 1960s.
An English actress and singer mostly known for her appearances in the sex comedy films in the 1950s, Diana Dors made a cameo appearance as a middle-aged woman customer.
The previously unreleased song “But I Might Die Tonight” by British singer-songwriter Cat Stevens was used in the opening and ending scenes.
The new recorded version of the song “Mother Sky” by German krautrock group Can was used in the scene in which Mike walks around the red-light district in Soho.
