The Deep End of the Ocean is a 1999 American drama film directed by Ulu Grosbard, and starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Treat Williams, Jonathan Jackson, John Kapelos, and Whoopi Goldberg.

After nine years, the Cappadora family has seemingly accepted that Ben has gone forever, when a familiar-looking boy turns up at their new house offering to mow their lawn.

According to a small behind-the-scenes booklet featured on the DVD release, the film began production on October 27, 1997 and was predominantly shot in Los Angeles.

This prompted the studio to go for a more conventional happy ending,[5] which resulted in the film being pushed back from a planned 1998 Fall release to Spring 1999.

[9] In The New York Times, Janet Maslin praised the director and lead actress but criticised the music: "With a fine, impassioned performance from Michelle Pfeiffer as the story's raw-nerved heroine, the film moves beyond the detective-story aspects of its material to concentrate on what kind of shock waves batter a family after an event like this... Grosbard mercifully avoids melodrama.

Stephen Goldblatt's clean lensing, Elmer Bernstein's evocative score, Dan Davis' crafty production design, Susie DeSanto's authentic costumes and, particularly, John Bloom's fluent editing serve as models for efficient storytelling, representing mainstream cinema at its best.

The Deep End of the Ocean has nothing but the noblest of intentions, and Grosbard's direction is meticulous, sober and tasteful, but the movie is so deliberate, so enervated that you feel as if you're watching it through glass...

"[12] In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers held a similar view: "The Deep End of the Ocean, from Jacquelyn Mitchard's best-selling novel about parents who find their lost son nine years after his abduction, benefits from a customarily fine performance by Michelle Pfeiffer as the boy's mother.

Director Ulu Grosbard (Georgia) and screenwriter Stephen Schiff (Lolita) commendably try to avoid the usual kidnapping clichés in favor of family dynamics, but the film ultimately gives in to a case of TV-movie blahs.

"[13] In Entertainment Weekly, Michael Sauter also found the lead performances superior to the film as a whole: "The first half of this drama, with Pfeiffer and Williams as parents whose 3-year-old son vanishes, is almost unbearably wrenching... Far less effective, however, is the rest of the story, set nine years later, when the boy resurfaces...

But 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.

Ebert wrote that "Ulu Grosbard's The Deep End of the Ocean is a painfully stolid movie that lumbers past emotional issues like a wrestler in a cafeteria line, putting a little of everything on his plate.

Apart from the previously mentioned occasions, and nice performances from Jonathan Jackson and Ryan Merriman, the movie's a floating longboat that ought to be ignited and pushed out to sea, Viking style.