Directed By Logan George and Celine Held

Starring – Dylan O’Brien, Eliza Scanlen, Caroline Falk

The Plot – In Louisiana, near the border of Texas, the mother of the young man Paris (O’Brien) has a seizure and falls off a bridge while driving her car with her son. He saves himself but is not able to rescue his mother that disappears in Caddo Lake. Since then, Paris researches why his mother had seizures when the water level is low in the lake, in turn uncovering an ages old mystery in the lake that will change his thoughts on the town.

Rated PG-13 for some disturbing/bloody images, thematic elements and brief strong adult language.

Caddo Lake | Official Trailer | Max

POSITIVES

For those who enjoy M. Night Shyamalan films without the kind of dramatics and bad acting that come from a director who has become so out of touch with reality, along comes ‘Caddo Lake’, a film that Shyamalan himself produced, but one that he thankfully stays as far away from the director’s chair as possible. This is one of those films that’s most rewarding the lesser that you know about it, as its marketing tool as a horror/thriller is as improper of a designation as I’ve seen this year, especially with the complexity that it continuously sheds on its way to one emotionally heavy drama. This of course resides on the element of investing in the characters, which George and Held as writers and directors take the entirety of the first act to properly flesh out, tapping into the universal language of shared tragedies and grief that bind so many of us together on one planet or time frame. In vividly fleshing out the characters and their respective conflicts, the audience has a tighter grasp on what drives these characters throughout questionable motivations, in turn making it not only easier to invest in their well-being as they tread mysteriously unpredictable waters, but also in the respect that this duo of directors imbed to Southern characters, which deviates away from the ages old captivity of dumb yokel stereotypes who walk directly into every bad thing that ever happens to them. As a result of being a mystery and perhaps a disciple of Shyamalan successors, the film obviously carries with it a series of meticulously timed twists that I didn’t even come close to accurately predicting, with sharp reconstruction on both the plot and the tone that makes this feel like a different movie every twenty minutes or so, but all without ever losing sight of the world that it has created for itself from feeling disjointed or at the very least improper. The film’s bittersweet ending involving epiphanous revelations for some, and consuming grief for others, is a refreshingly authentic depiction of life that doesn’t always garner a happy ending for those conflicted, but one that I never felt compromised the integrity of the 104-minute exploration, which satisfyingly and seamlessly tied up every thread with bountiful resolution that echoes that very same naturalism of life that grounds so many of these characters as living, breathing entities, instead of cinematic types. The articulation and tangibility of the desolate setting of this Louisiana swampland is also vital towards conjuring a distinct atmospheric ambiguity that continuously hangs overhead throughout the duration of the film. Choosing to shoot this on-site at the real life location of Caddo Lake, with all of encompassing trees enclosing all of the land’s secrets, and murky waters plunging deeper depths than we ever could imagine, really play into the claustrophobic encapsulation of so many of these people being stitched together by their traumas, with the ages old sentiment of the setting feeling like a character in and of its own in the movie coming into play as impactfully as anything that I can remember in recent memory, psychologically alluding to the things that we inherit in a place we call home, long before any of us ever set foot on the land, and long after we’ve shuffled off of this mortal coil. Then there’s the performances, which are easy to undermine as quietly subdued, due to the measured emotionality that this ensemble unloads to their deliveries, but each of them carry so much evidential baggage in the ways they live and interact with one another, primarily O’Brien and Scanlen, who disappear into roles capably and confidently in ways that made me seamlessly forget that I was watching actors portraying characters. O’Brien has always been one of Hollywood’s most misled talents, mostly as a result of the inferior projects that he is attached to, but here he gets to show off a communication with the camera that allows us to feel the regret and remorse in every response, particularly during those initial first act set-ups where he plays exposition as close to the heart as a man afraid to open up to new possibilities. Scanlen continues to impress in these thankless roles that she takes gravitationally to another level, with watery registries that always aim to please in overwhelming situations, to which the movie rewards her for, as she takes over the dominant side as the protagonist, the longer the film persists. The two of them unfortunately rarely get any scenes together, but their merited work individually as divided subplots does spread the wealth in ways that helps ease the pressure with some of the inconsistencies within the pacing, perhaps as a means to make a stage big enough for both of them to shine throughout such humbly humanistic approaches.

NEGATIVES

Though ‘Caddo Lake’ was quite exceptional for a straight-to-streaming product of consumption, it doesn’t always make the most of its minutes, requiring more patience initially than expected, in order to remain invested to a climax that definitely sneaks up on you. The toughest of these times definitely reside during the aforementioned opening act, which despite an abundance of character development and accommodating backstory, does feel a bit long-winded at 30 minutes, before transitioning into the essential conflict that drives the plot. Because first acts in movies are typically used as a grabbing point to hook their audiences, the lack of compelling developments here certainly didn’t make the narrative as accessible as needed for something that could definitely be considered a slow-burner, and while I definitely don’t take issues with taking your time and setting a backstory, I wish there was some kind of evidential indication initially at the foreboding darkness heading this way, especially since that opening act feels a bit too sedated tonally to push curiosity for the other 70 minutes of production. Speaking of production, most of it is effectively garnered toward the atmospheric elements of the environment, especially for streaming levels, but I wish the sound designs of the movie played more of a three-dimensional vividness for those quiet scenes on the lake, ideally in ways that pushed overwhelming tension by maximizing the influence of surrounding creatures and insects that overwhelm the isolation factor of various protagonists. Finally, I touched on this a bit with the opening act, but there are serious issues with the pacing throughout the exploration that feels evident by a lack of urgency in the direction of George and Held, which never elevates, despite the expansion in the storytelling that leans heavily into dramatic captivity. While it’s effortless to interpret that our duo of protagonists are in trouble, it never quite ratchets the tension and suspense in ways that feel palpable to the integrity of the experience, resulting in sedated direction that definitely could’ve increased the thrills in a movie improperly labeled as a thriller, in order to make the minutes fly by all the more effortlessly.

OVERALL
‘Caddo Lake’ treads water with thorough character development and a strong sense of community that vividly fleshes out the psychologies of this setting frozen in time. Despite a rough opening act that tests the patience of its audience and suspense that never quite elevates to boiling levels, the film overcomes inferiority with naturalistic performances and unpredictably effective twists that feels Shyamalan without the sensationalizing, delivering a case study of consuming grief that delivers in the environment that it feels most digestible, at home.

My Grade: 7/10 or B-