CADDO LAKE Key Art | ©2024 New Line Cinema / Max

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Dylan O’Brien, Eliza Scanlen, Diana Hopper, Caroline Falk, Sam Hennings, Eric Edward Lange, Lauren Ambrose
Writers: Celine Held & Logan George
Directors: Celine Held & Logan George
Distributor: New Line Cinema/Max
Release Date: October 10, 2024 (Max)

There’s a chance that describing CADDO LAKE as a science-fiction/fantasy film will give prospective viewers the wrong idea. However, it’s just about impossible to explain what makes it part of that genre without giving the whole game away.

Writers/directors Celine Held & Logan George bring us to the East Texas side of Caddo Lake, a bayou that extends into Louisiana (where the film was shot). It’s one of those places where little tree-filled islands create shadowy paths through waters mostly navigated by motorboats.

Paris (Dylan O’Brien) is a young local man who survives when the car driven by his mother plunges off a bridge into the lake. Paris unsuccessfully tries to save his mother from the sinking vehicle, and is thereafter consumed by guilt.

It is known that Paris’s mother suffered from seizures, although she had been healthy for a long time before the accident. Paris suspects that his mother was misdiagnosed and attempts to get to the bottom of what was ailing her, even though his father wants them both to move on.

Paris lives in a trailer, has a loving and loyal girlfriend (Diana Hopper), and a job pulling rusted pipes and other refuse from the lake. He starts hearing odd booming noises, and is drawn to a particular island in Caddo Lake.

Meanwhile, fellow Caddo Lake resident, college student Ellie (Eliza Scanlen), has a fraught relationship with her mother Celeste (Lauren Ambrose). Ellie has spent most of her life angry at Celeste for not explaining more about what happened to Ellie’s birth father, and resents Celeste’s husband, pastor Daniel (Eric Edward Lange). Ellie also hears the strange sounds.

Then there’s Anna (Caroline Falk), Ellie’s adoring young stepsister. Ellie, wrapped up in her own emotions, doesn’t understand her effect on the little girl.

When Ellie, after yet another fight with Celeste, runs out of the house and takes the speedboat over to a friend’s house, Anna attempts to follow her stepsister in the dinghy. Anna and the dinghy both disappear, setting off a distraught search.

For a long while, we try to figure out how the stories of Paris and Ellie are or will be connected. The presence of M. Night Shyamalan as one of CADDO LAKE’s producers suggests that there’s a big twist.

Credit the filmmakers here: the twist is in fact so big that, even after we essentially understand it, we’re still piecing it together bit by bit until we have a complete picture.

CADDO LAKE also benefits from its beautiful, evocative, mysterious location, which lends itself to this type of narrative.

O’Brien and Scanlen are both convincing as troubled, driven individuals. Ambrose does well with Celeste’s stress, and Lange is a standout as the most reasonable soul in the bunch.

Here is where CADDO LAKE bogs down somewhat. Both Paris and Ellie are self-isolating. Celeste, while a realistic depiction of any number of women with unruly teenage daughters, also has traits that make her exasperating.

This is all before we come to the conclusion that if the characters took time to consult with the people around them, the whole storyline might fall apart. Granted, CADDO LAKE has admirably detailed plot construction, but it would have more impact if it could withstand at least a few more attempts at communication.

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