| Director(s) | Veronika Franz Severin Fiala |
| Principal Cast | Riley Keough as Grace Jaeden Martell as Aidan Lia McHugh as Mia Richard Armitage as Richard |
| Release Date | 2019 |
| Language(s) | English |
| Running Time | 108 minutes |
The moment I saw the trailer for this movie and realized that Franz and Fiala were attached to the project , I waited with baited breath till the movie came to my area (which thankfully it did). Though it doesn’t reach the same heights as the duo’s debut feature, Goodnight Mommy, it’s still a standout in a sea of boring and uninspired horrors. The Lodge may fumble with the logic of some its grander narrative decisions, but it more than makes up for that with the dark,twisted offerings it has in store.
The movie follows a family on retreat to a winter cabin. When work events come up, the father, Richard, is forced to leave his children alone with his new girlfriend, Grace. There’s an immediate tension between the two parties as Grace tries to be amicable with her partner’s children who seem to want nothing to do with her. After a blizzard strands the party in the cabin, things start going bump in the night and Grace is forced to deal with the unpredictable and tumultuous state of affairs. Based on the first 10 minutes of the movie, which are absolutely shocking, I knew I was in for a brutal experience.
Unlike their first movie, this one revels in teasing the audience with what’s really going on. There’s deception and layers to deception that’ll have you constantly questioning what’s happening. I came in with some initial ideas and then was hit with switch-ups that I genuinely did not see coming. It culminates in some of the most twisted stuff I’ve seen on the big screen in a long time. This is not the movie you want to see if you’re trying to have a good time or forget about the worries of your day. The story is dark and explores the deepest, most intimate parts of the human condition. It focuses on grief, depression, and heaping doses of internalized resentment and how those elements disrupt and warp our ability to properly evaluate the proper course of action. That being said, the way certain twists are executed border on neigh unbelievable given the information the audience is presented. In their attempt to create twists that are impossible to predict, Franz and Fiala are forced to really stretch logic in ways that’ll have sticklers for rules in movies feeling frustrated. This is a story driven movie with interesting characters that’s more focused on getting to the shocking thematic and viscerally unpleasant scenes than developing the underlying logic as to why those things are happening in the first place.
While the characters aren’t as developed as I would have liked, the performances of the actors playing them are refined and accentuate the tension and uncomfortable nature of the situation. Both Martell and McHugh manage to show their disdain for their dad’s new lover in their own unique and petty ways, from the silent treatment to the mean side-eye. Their obvious care and affection for one another leaps off the screen and it’s completely believable that they’re siblings struggling to find their footing in the world. Likewise, Keough manages to portray the range of emotions any desperate person would do trying to impress their partner’s kids going from enthusiastic to laid back to assertive. At the same time, she shows the cracks in her psyche as the blizzard and her isolation continue. Given the nature of the twists ,the twists within twists, and so on, it’s even more impressive just how well everyone managed to keep the nature of the mystery under wraps until just the right moment.
Unfortunately, despite being stylish and packed with scenes I won’t be able to get out of my head for the foreseeable future, one of the movie’s bigger reveals feels like it comes out of left field. I don’t want to spoil anything because the movie should be seen with absolutely no knowledge of any of the mystery, but I think the way everything pans out feels undeserved at some level. If the movie spent another 10-15 minutes developing character backgrounds, tightening up the references to Christianity, and making better use of a dollhouse set that’s used to transition between scenes it would’ve been up there with some of very best. The elements are all there. It’s just that they’re not meshing all the way through.
REPORT CARD
| TLDR | The Lodge is as dark as it is twisted in its depiction of how grief and hatred warp our perception of the world. The story of a new girlfriend trying to get her partner’s kids to open up to her goes places you won’t be able to un-see and will manage to chill you even if the setup feels over-the-top at times. |
| Rating | 9.0/10 |
| Grade | A |
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion.
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