The Lodge (2019)

From Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, the people who co-directed and co-wrote Goodnight Mommy (joined this time by an extra writer, Sergio Casci), comes this tale of isolation, horror, and madness. And it all stems from a pair of kids upset by their parents divorcing.

Jaeden Martell and Lia McHugh are Aiden and Mia, a brother and sister who are understandably upset when their mother reacts badly to news of divorce proceedings by killing herself. They blame the new woman (Grace, played by Riley Keough) who is due to marry their father (Richard Armitage). With that friction crackling away between them, the foursome head to an isolated holiday lodge. Maybe relations will improve. But strange things start to happen once their father is called away on business. Are they playing tricks on one another, or does it all have something to do with Grace's disturbing past spent within a strict and controlling cult?

Once again focusing on a pair of children who are acting oddly around a disturbed parental figure, Fiala and Franz certainly seem comfortable in their chosen niche. It's a shame that neither of their two main fictional features have so far been entirely successful. The Lodge works better than Goodnight Mommy, for the most part, because there is more interaction between the adult and the children, and there's a sense of tension that builds nicely, even if things fall apart once you start to think about them in more detail. The Lodge is actually quite ridiculous, but the final scenes at least make it worthwhile. This is a bleak film, and maybe not one to quickly reach for if you're currently experiencing a bit of the Lockdown madness most of us have had at one point or another this year.

The cast are pretty faultless though, with major props due to the talented young duo of Martell and McHugh. The script allows them to act in a way that is believably childish, emotional, and spiteful, and you're on their side from the earliest scenes. Keough has to be a bit twitchy and highly-strung for a lot of the runtime, but she does it all well. Armitage is absent for a large chunk of the movie, but is absolutely fine in his main scenes, and Alicia Silverstone puts in another of the wonderful little performances she has been accruing over the past few years.

Fiala and Franz have an impressive visual style, both this and Goodnight Mommy have a clean and cold look for many scenes (although The Lodge has a much colder environment being shown, literally), and I hope that they keep working hard on whatever might become the material that best matches up with their obvious talent. This is a step in the right direction, but still falls just a bit short of the mark to be really good.

6/10

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