Caddo Lake (2024) Movie Review and Movie Summary

Someone says to Paris Long, one of the two protagonists in Max's original film Caddo Lake, “If you can't explain yourself, you're not going anywhere.” I'm not sure I can fully explain this film, so I could get into trouble.

However, this isn't always the problem that the “plot hole” checkers and purists on the internet would have you believe. Sometimes it's even better when a film doesn't tie all aspects together, but rather works on an emotional level rather than a practical one, trusting that viewers will meet the film halfway. Some people will freak out about Caddo Lake's big twist, which I can't even write about at the network's request, but I found it refreshing to see a film that feels like a traditional streaming thriller, but itself reveals something very different. It also helps to have two leads who are committed to the immediacy of their characters and never wink at the camera the way lesser-known actors would in such a completely bonkers script. They could have called it “Cuckoo Lake.”

This isn't a real place like Caddo Lake, which looks more like a collection of swamps and forests on the Texas-Louisiana border. Writing/directing duo Logan George and Celine Held (who worked on three episodes of Servant, which likely led to M. Night Shyamalan producing the flick) reportedly took inspiration from the real Caddo Lake, a place that has a dangerous energy that binds it through generations of locals. They've imagined the story of three people lost in this deadly place, connected in ways they never could have imagined, and I can't give anything away here either.

Paris (Dylan O'Brien, who also appears in a great Dan Aykroyd impersonation in “Saturday Night”) is haunted by the death of his mother, who suffered a seizure while driving through Paris and caused her to fall off a bridge. His survivor's guilt informs his body language, which O'Brien conveys well as a man trying to figure out what exactly happened to his mother, even going so far as to confront her doctor in a parking lot to get answers. But he also suspects there may be more to the event, something darker beneath the surface of Caddo Lake.

We also meet Ellie (Eliza Scanlen, so good in “Sharp Objects”), who longs for an absent father she never knew and clashes with her mother, played by Lauren Ambrose, another connection to the underrated ” Servant.” Her stepfather Daniel (Eric Lange) is clearly trying to repair broken bridges, but Ellie is portrayed as a loner, someone whose only friend seems to be her 8-year-old stepsister Anna (Caroline Falk). After a family argument, Ellie runs into the lake and Anna follows her, only to disappear completely from the face of the earth. Her disappearance will connect Ellie's story to Paris in a way you couldn't possibly predict even if I gave you a hundred chances.

This is partly because “Caddo Lake” has been a relatively straightforward working-class drama for some time. In fact, Shyamalan's name as a producer – and how genre-dominated this season is for streamers this time of year – is the biggest clue that something is about to go wrong. This doesn't just go sideways. It goes in several directions at once, often in ways that are hard to understand, but it really depends on how much you enjoy the challenge.

This viewer who sees Away Too many films that make their obvious plot twists clear in the first few minutes, I admire the narrative gamesmanship of “Caddo Lake,” even though I'm pretty sure I couldn't explain it without a pen and paper to put it together to draw. Again, it's very helpful to have a cast that plays urgency rather than plot twists, and O'Brien and Scanlen do just that, making these lost souls feel emotional even amidst the relatively ridiculous machinations, with which this story is twisted. It's a shame that the climax relies on Ellie googling a lot to explain the film as best as she can about how everything is connected, but it's forgivable that the film is best experienced coldly by seeing how this family saga unfolds somehow intertwined This could only happen in seemingly unstable places in the world like Caddo Lake.

Premieres on Max on Thursday, October 10th^Th.