--- title: "Deep End" year: 1971 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/deep-end" fi1m_id: "deep-end" imdb_id: "tt0066122" tmdb_id: 59408 wikidata_id: "Q570929" fi1m_score: 76 critics_reviews: 2 published: "2026-09-26T17:07:17.885263+00:00" updated: "2026-09-26T17:07:18.485706+00:00" region: "CH" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Deep End (1971) Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski · 1h 32m · Drama, Comedy ## Identity Deep End - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/deep-end - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** deep-end - **IMDb ID:** tt0066122 - **TMDB ID:** 59408 - **Wikidata ID:** Q570929 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066122/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/59408, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q570929 **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics: 2 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* A swimming pool is an awkward place to keep your longing to yourself > Jerzy Skolimowski makes youthful longing uncomfortable in a film whose swimming-pool setting is more persuasive than some of its strangeness. The uneasy humour works; the dreamlike atmosphere occasionally keeps the people at a distance. ## Synopsis Mike (John Moulder-Brown) and Susan (Jane Asher) are at the centre of a story of youthful longing, with a swimming pool providing the setting for desire and discomfort. The Gym Teacher (Karl Michael Vogler) is among the adults in their orbit. Bodies are on display, but other people remain difficult to understand. Sexual curiosity brings embarrassment as well as possibility, and the surroundings give private feelings an awkwardly public setting. Comedy sits alongside drama as the wish to get close to someone becomes harder to separate from the fear of being exposed. ## Review *Deep End* is good at making desire feel embarrassing, and less consistently good at making its strangeness feel necessary. Jerzy Skolimowski approaches youthful longing with a willingness to let comedy become uncomfortable before we have finished enjoying it. The swimming-pool setting gives that approach somewhere specific to work: a place where physical exposure need not bring any greater understanding of another person. We recommend it, with a warning that its oddness can sometimes make the feelings harder to reach. John Moulder-Brown’s Mike and Jane Asher’s Susan give us people to attend to amid that uncertainty. The interest lies in watching them without assuming that youth makes someone innocent or that attraction makes someone understandable. Asher is particularly well suited to a film that resists making another person entirely available to us. The performances benefit from our uncertainty, though there are stretches when we want more ordinary human contact and less unease. Charly Steinberger’s cinematography makes the swimming-pool setting important to how we experience the film, rather than merely somewhere for it to happen. The images encourage us to notice the discomfort of bodies occupying a shared space. We felt uneasy watching the pool scenes because that physical openness offers so little reassurance about what anyone feels. The dreamlike atmosphere works most effectively when it sharpens this recognisable embarrassment; it is less helpful when we become chiefly conscious of the film being peculiar. Barrie Vince’s editing has a difficult balance to maintain between comedy and disturbance. The shifts can be disarming, denying us the comfortable pause in which to decide that something was only a joke. That uncertainty is productive for much of the film, but it also asks us to keep adjusting our response. At times the changes of tone become more absorbing than the people experiencing them, which is a limitation in a story so dependent on longing. The music credited to Cat Stevens and Can belongs to the same unsettled experience. It contributes to the sense that the film will not settle into a single comfortable mood, and that restlessness generally serves it well. Yet the atmosphere is already forceful enough without every element needing to reinforce its peculiarities. We found the film more affecting when we could concentrate on the embarrassment between people rather than on the combined insistence of its effects. The screenplay by Jerzy Skolimowski, Jerzy Gruza and Bolesław Sulik deserves credit for allowing comedy and sexual discomfort to occupy the same scene without tidying either away. A more reassuring coming-of-age drama might make each awkward encounter a useful lesson. Here, youthful feeling remains difficult, sometimes ridiculous and not automatically deserving of indulgence. The cost is that the writing can seem more interested in sustaining discomfort than in giving us sufficient access to the people involved. At 92 minutes, this is a compact but demanding choice, especially for anyone expecting the warmth usually offered by stories of youthful discovery. Its humour does not reliably provide relief, and its atmosphere requires some patience. There is enough feeling beneath the strangeness to make that patience worthwhile. Choose it for an evening when an awkward silence afterwards would not be a problem. *Fi1m score 76, published 26 September 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Deep End worth watching?** *Deep End* is worth watching for its uncomfortable humour and perceptive treatment of youthful longing; we score it 76 out of 100. We recommend it to viewers willing to sit with embarrassment and uncertainty, though its dreamlike strangeness sometimes makes the characters’ feelings harder to reach. **How long is Deep End, and what is it rated?** *Deep End* runs 1h 32m. It is a drama and comedy film. **Where can I watch Deep End in Switzerland?** *Deep End* is not on any streaming or rental service in Switzerland at the moment. It is available in 4 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How violent or frightening is Deep End, and is it suitable for children?** *Deep End* has a UK 15 certificate and is not suitable for children under 15; its sexual curiosity and uneasy treatment of desire make it an uncomfortable watch. We find the pool scenes unsettling because physical exposure offers little emotional reassurance, but that discomfort alone does not establish how graphic any violence is. **How does Deep End compare to The Piano Teacher?** *Deep End* is the gentler, more comic choice beside [*The Piano Teacher*](https://film.one/film/the-piano-teacher), though neither offers much reassurance about intimacy. We find *The Piano Teacher* more precise in its handling of discomfort, with Isabelle Huppert’s controlled performance giving its harshness a human centre; *Deep End* suits viewers drawn to youthful embarrassment and dreamlike unease rather than a punishing examination of humiliation. ### Reviews we read (2) - **Time Out**, Dave Calhoun (4/5): The review is positive about Skolimowski’s film. It singles out the swimming pool as a vivid setting for youthful longing and discovery. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/deep-end) - **The Guardian**, Philip French (65/100, inferred): French sees the film as a bizarre, disturbing coda to the swinging sixties. He singles out its dreamlike atmosphere and extraordinary climax in the empty swimming pool. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/may/08/deep-end-jerzy-skolimowski-review) ## Details - **Director:** Jerzy Skolimowski - **Director:** Jerzy Skolimowski - **Screenplay:** Bolesław Sulik, Jerzy Gruza, Jerzy Skolimowski - **Cinematography:** Charly Steinberger - **Editor:** Barrie Vince - **Music:** Cat Stevens, Can - **Producer:** Helmut Jedele - **Cast:** Jane Asher as Susan; John Moulder-Brown as Mike; Karl Michael Vogler as Gym Teacher; Christopher Sandford as Chris; Diana Dors as Bathhouse Female Client #1; Louise Martini as Beata; Erica Beer as Bathhouse Cashier; Anita Lochner as Kathy - **Runtime:** 1h 32m - **Release (Switzerland):** 20 July 2021 - **Genres:** Drama, Comedy - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3qpEzHmZAA ## Where to watch in Switzerland Not streaming, renting or buying in Switzerland at the last check. Also available in: BE, GB, JP, NL. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Shout* (1978): Another Skolimowski film in which ordinary surroundings become difficult to trust. - *The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner* (1962): For youthful frustration expressed through bodies, enclosed spaces and resistance to authority. - *A Swedish Love Story* (1970): Adolescent attraction observed closely, with adults providing remarkably little useful guidance. - *Water Lilies* (2007): Swimming pools and uncertain desire, with particular attention to looking and being watched. - *The Piano Teacher* (2001), Fi1m 82: A harsher examination of desire, humiliation and the difficulty of intimacy. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-piano-teacher.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/deep-end