Despite being flush with color for most of its runtime due to the natural, overgrown landscapes and the sun that filters through the trees surrounding it, “Caddo Lake” is strikingly reminiscent of a certain mid-2000s style of gray genre flick. It’s not just the coloring that lends this thriller to that sort of comparison. The latest film from writer-directors Celine Held and Logan George is a product of a bygone era of filmmaking, for good and bad. As stylishly stripped down the film is and the solid central performances anchoring the story, the writing itself trips over itself to make ends meet. It’s both predictable and not as it twists and turns while trying to shake the inevitable — which is audiences guessing the main twist before a satisfactory moment in the film.
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Dylan O’Brien, Eliza Scanlen, and Lauren Ambrose star in this thriller, which follows O’Brien’s Paris and Scanlen’s Ellie and the fallout that arrives after the disappearance of an 8-year-old girl. The girl in question, Anna, is Ellie’s younger, soon-to-be step-sister, and Ellie’s tumultuous relationship with her mother (Ambrose) helps inspire her to double down on her search for the missing girl. In a separate thread, Paris continues to be haunted by the death of his mother from a car accident where, due to a seeming seizure, his mother drove off a bridge and drowned. He’s trying to piece together her past illness and death, believing that there was something additional at play in her demise beyond her deteriorating health.
“Caddo Lake” works well enough at the start as it examines two separate family dramas. There’s a naturalism in how the film depicts the persistent, cyclical nature of trauma and grief and how we rebuild to grow from past tragedies. But it finds its footing once these stories begin interweaving, linking past, present, and future as the characters go to any lengths to discover the truth regarding their loved ones.
The film casts an immediate, eerie atmosphere. From an alligator carcass seemingly split perfectly in two laying to rot on the banks to the dead butterflies that fill an eight-year-olds pockets to even Ellie’s ambivalence at yanking a loose tooth out of her sister’s head, the film is unsettling in how up close and personal it gets. The opening moment hones in on the seizing hands of a drowning woman and maintains that sense of urgent claustrophobia throughout, even while set amongst thriving wildlife.
Cinematographer Lowell A. Meyer, alongside Held and George, details this rural area with care and an eye for naturalistic beauty, even backdropped by tragedy. There’s a tangible sense of the world being lived in, from the boats they traverse the lake on to the worn and loved clothes they wear. But as the film continues and becomes less tethered to reality, it struggles to assert its vision and storytelling confidence.
“Caddo Lake” heavily relies on tropes and conventions to combine singular story elements. The script and its characters are thin. We know aspects of what makes them—loss and the ensuing grief, typically—but we don’t spend enough time with them before the big events that set them on their story paths.
Scanlen is a formidable performer, able to imbue even the slightest of characters enough gravitas to ground her in reality. We believe she cares about Anna, and we believe her dormant rage at her mother for her inability to support her through her adolescence. But we’re mainly thrust into the action of her storyline, making her development less important. Ambrose is similarly phenomenal. So much so that it’s hard to stomach the abuse she lobs Ellie’s way, even once we have greater context on why she is the way she is.
O’Brien continues to show previously obscured depths as a performer with this along with “Saturday Night.” While Paris is a mere blueprint of a character, O’Brien offers him an easy affability despite his hardships that make him seem remarkably human. Even when the tides turn, the story pivots to something more surreal and supernatural. O’Brien maintains Paris’ human spirit. In his most recent film, “Trap,” producer M. Night Shyamalan allowed late ’90s and early 2000s heartthrob Josh Hartnett the chance to demonstrate his continued star power. Here, it seems as if the writers are getting a jump on the narrative with O’Brien.
“Caddo Lake” is an, at times, hypnotic ride. Taut with tension, it has audiences constantly searching for answers in the emotional wreckage of these characters’ lives. However, no matter the thrill of the mystery, there’s no doubt that the writing itself is flat and emotionally hollow. We don’t care about these characters but are invested enough to see how the twists unravel themselves. From the direction to the performances, the film is solid. It’s just missing invigorating writing that helps encourage the rest of the story. [C+]
“Caddo Lake” premieres October 10 on Max.
