M. Night Shyamalan is having a moment on the small screen: his love-it-or-hate-it thriller, Trap, has just hit digital platforms after only one month in theaters; and the Shyamalan-produced Caddo Lake has become a slow-burn streaming hit. Caddo Lake is set in a tight-knit community living and working in the Louisiana bayou. Paris is slowly pulling his life together following the death of his mother who inexplicably drove her car off of a bridge and into the titular lake. Ellie is a teenager whose family lives on the water. Her already-strained home life gets thrown into chaos when her younger stepsister goes missing. The separate story lines play like character studies in some somber family drama, and it’s the film’s swampy realism and down-to-earth performances that keep this tale of grief and loss grounded when the fabric of reality of life on the lake threatens to come apart at the seams.
After Ellie’s stepsister Anna vanishes near the enigmatic lake, Ellie sets out to search for her. She wanders along the lake where the water has receded, but when she returns home she’s shocked by an unexpected surprise. Desperate and confused, Ellie goes back to the lake knowing that her sister’s disappearance is connected to something bigger and weirder happening under the water. Paris works as a roughneck removing an old pipeline from the serpentine waterways of Caddo Lake. Odd things start to happen: he loses his hearing momentarily, and finds his mother’s old necklace tangled in the propeller of his boat motor. Ellie and Paris’ paths eventually cross, and their mutual journey uncovers long-buried secrets, bringing to light the hidden forces at play around Caddo Lake.
Dylan O’Brien is one of those actors who has the necessary appeal of a romantic lead balanced with a look and manner that make him totally believable in the everyman role of the quiet, wounded Paris. You believe him when he hits a pipe with a wrench, and you believe him sharing a heart to heart with his estranged girlfriend, Cee. Cee is played by Diana Hopper — a throwback beauty who delivers one of the film’s many strong performances. Eliza Scanlen plays Ellie. Some viewers will recognize the Australian actress from the HBO miniseries Sharp Objects. Scanlen seems a little too old for the role — she’s actually 25. But she’s such a talented actress that I found myself just giving her the benefit of the doubt and suspending my disbelief. The rest of the cast is equally convincing, delivering the script’s thoughtful, spare dialog with the quiet dignity it deserves.
Caddo Lake is co-written and co-directed by Celine Held and Logan George. I’m not exactly sure how the pair collaborate behind the camera, but everything in front of the lens feels like a singular vision saturated with quiet tone, populated with believable characters, and brought to life with the best kind of understated acting. The production is strong across the board with cinematographer Lowell A. Meyer filling his frames with spooky views of the wild beauty of bayou country, and flourishes from the costume department who get just the right amount of grime on Paris’s trucker hat, and exactly the right kind of wear on the collar of his faded denim jacket. It’s a movie brimming with creative integrity and that’s not something I’d readily assume from a picture that ultimately reveals itself to be a supernatural thriller. Caddo Lake is elevated genre fare that delivers otherworldly chills wrapped in smart, sumptuous cinema.
Caddo Lake is streaming on MAX
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.