Caddo Lakethe latest genre thriller to be dumped on Max with little fanfare (did you see that? Salem’s fate?), tends toward the realistic end of the science fiction film spectrum. It’s set in a town of pickup trucks and local markets, where a tight-knit community is treading water in a system that does them no favors. Caddo Lake could easily be mistaken for a modern salt-of-the-earth drama. But as in The Babadook or a Stephen King crime story, an eerie touch ultimately distorts the human story in this city.
An “executive produced by M. Night Shyamalan” card in the opening credits is definitely a tip-off Caddo Lake‘s game: It’s a movie that revolves around (SPOILER ALERT). But the twist hits hard.
When eight-year-old Anna disappears near Caddo Lake (a real-life swampland bordering Louisiana and Texas), her family and friends spring into action to find her. Like this is the start of a southern baking season Mare by EasttownFilmmaking duo Celine Held and Logan George are as interested in the ways a crime disrupts the lives of locals as they are in the suspense of a potential manhunt.
Anna’s older sister, Ellie (Little women‘s Eliza Scanlen), spirals in the search for answers. When we meet her, she’s already rife with arguments with her single mother, Celeste (Lauren Ambrose), who doesn’t want to talk about Ellie’s father, who is out of the picture and is putting a strain on her relationships by drinking too much. But family problems take a back seat to finding Anna, and Ellie ventures into the wooded swamp of Caddo Lake in search of answers. Hero and George take full advantage of their on-site geography, saturating the screen with browns and greens as characters weave through a setting that, thanks to the towering bald cypress trees that burst through the lake, feels almost naturally supernatural.
Another song features Paris, played by former Teenage wolf And Maze runner heartbreaking Dylan O’Brien in his most I-now-have-a-beard-which-means-I’m-a-convincing-sad-adult role yet. While Paris lives and works around Caddo Lake, he spends most of his time remembering an accident that threw him and his mother off a bridge. She didn’t survive, but Paris is convinced there’s more to what happened out there – and that answers may be lurking around Caddo Lake.
Image: Max
For most Caddo LakeHero and George drift between the search for a missing girl and Paris’ search for answers, stories that ultimately collide when (I WOULD NOT DARE, COME ON, WHO DO YOU THINK I AM). The film is fairly subdued until the M. Night-style reveal, and the directors rely heavily on Scanlen and O’Brien’s emotionally charged performances to keep viewers hooked through scenes of tearful breakdowns and frantic boat rides.
Ambrose knows how to transform any scene that borders on melodrama into a raw outburst of relatable emotion, as she has done ever since Six feet under days (and has done for Shyamalan on Servant). She only gets a few meager scenes, but when Celeste clashes with her daughter over the life she’d hoped to build, and criticizes herself for her failures, Caddo Lake is an honest, unhappy human drama. Then when Hero and George pull back the curtain, it becomes a rewarding head spinner.
What a nice treat to see a movie with a satisfying twist! When it all became clear, I sat up in my chair at home, turned to my loved one and exclaimed, “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!” The last twenty minutes kept the tension going.
The trudging path to reach this moment Caddo Lake is difficult to recommend: it’s wandering, superficial and despite all the moments the actors show up, it’s not very fresh. But Hero and George stick to the film’s magic trick, which punctuates the characters’ journey with catharsis. The real twist is that by the end you actually care about the drama of it all. Shyamalan got that The sixth senseand everyone gets to work on it Caddo Lake.
Caddo Lake now streaming on Max.
