The Deep End of the Ocean
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: March 12, 1999 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
45
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
16
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
VarietyEmanuel 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. Read full review
75
USA TodayMike Clark
Two films in one: an intriguing child-disappearance mystery and an uncommonly affecting domestic drama realized by four terrific central performances.
70
SalonAndrew 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. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)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. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyMichael 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. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames 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. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
About two faces of healing.
60
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
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. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth 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]
60
TimeRichard Corliss
Pfeiffer restores honor to the family drama. Read full review
60
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Pfeiffer digs into the role and won't let go. The rest of the movie is conventionally earnest. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleSteve Davis
Never fully taps your empathy or your fears; it plays like a movie that's always about someone else. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The film ultimately gives in to a case of TV-movie blahs. Read full review
50
Film ThreatTom Meek
Heavy-handed melodrama that rises above its manipulative trappings on the solid performances of the cast. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
It's a classy but downbeat spin on the most familiar of TV-movie formulas. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid 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. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineSandra 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. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael 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. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan 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. Read full review
50
San Francisco ExaminerWesley Morris
This is the kind of movie that mistakes heartbreak for being housebroken. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
It’s the sort of performance that announces itself with the subtlety of a lit-up highway construction sign. Caution: Actress at Work. Read full review
40
Dallas ObserverMichael 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. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger 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. Read full review
30
SlateDavid 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. Read full review
20
The A.V. ClubKeith 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. Read full review
10
Washington PostStephen 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. Read full review
10
Washington PostDesson Thomson
The movie's a floating longboat that ought to be ignited and pushed out to sea, Viking style. Read full review
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