“Caddo Lake” (Max) smartly taps into both emotions and metaphysics, along with the gorgeously foreboding bayou straddling Texas and Louisiana, in one of 2024’s minor gems. If you aren’t grabbed by the character relationships, the mystery might get you. And if you aren’t grabbed by the mystery, the relationships might get you. I enjoyed both.
At least he’s still doing good work as a producer
Produced by M. Night Shyamalan, “Caddo Lake” is like what we’d be getting from him if he put the care and attention into his scripts like he did 20 years ago instead of cranking out vanity fare like “Trap.” The writer-director duo of Logan George and Celine Held, who paid their dues on Shyamalan’s TV series “The Servant,” start with a script that’s just clever enough for its own good.
In parallel, they build up two seemingly unrelated characters. Paris (Dylan O’Brien, “The Maze Runner”) is a soft-spoken young man with mental-health issues in the wake of his mother’s tragic death when she apparently blacked out behind the wheel.
“Caddo Lake” (2024)
Directors: Logan George, Celine Held
Writers: Celine Held, Logan George
Stars: Dylan O’Brien, Eliza Scanlen, Caroline Falk
His outdoor job is lensed with beautiful gloom on the real Caddo Lake by Lowell A. Meyer. Paris dredges water-flow blockages out of the controversial engineer-expanded lake. An early mystery is “Where does this old pipe go?” It leads to an old pump, and “Caddo Lake” gets us thinking about how man fills the natural world with junk. Don’t worry, this is not a lecture-y piece of climate sci-fi, but you might be tempted to do a deep dive online.
The other lead character is Ellie, played by Eliza Scanlen, who broke through on the similarly backwoods TV miniseries “Sharp Objects.” Hounded by a mom (Lauren Ambrose) who thinks she’s irresponsible, Ellie takes her motorboat out on the dangerously shallow waters to look for her missing kid sister Anna (Caroline Falk). As the search ramps up, it’s clear the folks in this region could use some fan boats, but perhaps those are too expensive.
“Sharp Objects” came out back in 2018 – six years ago! There’s something in the water in recent years. Or maybe it’s just Gen-X and millennial filmmakers starting to notice that midlife phenomenon where time starts going so fast. “My Old Ass” also taps into this idea that time is speeding up in the 21st century.
The mystery goes beyond the missing child (Spoilers)
(SPOILERS FOLLOW.)
Like “MOA,” “Caddo Lake” uses a metaphysical conceit, but I’m hiding it behind a spoiler warning here because it’s the core mystery. I had a blast figuring out the narrative’s nature. We’re given enough clues to figure out the rules of the game once Paris and Ellie respectively find a time warp deep in the lake area’s swamped woods.
When Ellie discovers something about young Anna’s past, we’re allowed to feel as smart as the movie, rather than smarter or dumber. Every narrative oddity lines up in the end, and looking back, the dialog and set designs (for example, early Aughts computer monitors at the lake-dredging office) provide subtle clues. George and Held smoothly operate a cut above most time-spiral narratives. (For instance, the horror film “Triangle” is good, but not as smart as this film.)
(END OF SPOILERS.)
Though the spoilery surprise gives “Caddo Lake” its identity, the movie has a lot of heart beyond that as it explores blue-collar backwoods folk who don’t communicate well but still love each other, leading to pain.
The area’s swamped-in-time nature allows “Caddo Lake” to hide the surprise from us for longer than it could have in a bustling city. The increasingly odd events encourage us to mull the passing of time – both the metaphysical oddities of time as a concept, and the way time ties into our emotions.
Messing with nature – expanding Caddo Lake via a dam (and forcing the Native Americans to Oklahoma, something the film doesn’t mention) – obviously messes with space. Science tells us space and time are connected. So what if messing with nature messes with time, too? It’s more of a philosophical question than a scientific one in “Caddo Lake” – and one it could’ve gone deeper into, but I’m OK with leaving things as food for thought. Either way, the big questions don’t swamp this movie’s heart.