Skolimowski's previous films all maintained a brittle tension between romanticism and cynicism, principally through the person of a questing, usually adolescent, hero unable—despite a succession of experiences revealing both the egotism and the utter separateness of other people—to suppress his expectation of a better world. They were at once a celebration of youthful energy and of a more mature disenchantment, alternately detached and wryly compassionate, with the director controlling the ebb and flow of audience sympathies as if the better to convince us of the absurdity of sharing his affection for his unreliable characters.

To this extent his hilarious Deep End runs true to form, while being—superficially—the most superficial of Skolimowski's films to date. (p. 16)

The ending is thematically consistent with Skolimowski's pervasive view of a greedy society in which people use and discard other people like objects and sex is equated with materialism...