Review: The Lodge

Quit screwing around.

Richard (Richard Armitage) is a divorcee who is trying to integrate his new fiancee, Grace (Riley Keough) into his life. She has a very tragic past, and his two children, Aiden (Jaeden Martell - formerly Lieberher, I have no idea when he changed this) and Mia (Lia McHugh) are not keen on entertaining the thought of her being in their lives. Richard decides to drive them up to a secluded cabin on a mountain for Christmas in hopes this will all bring them together.

The Lodge sets us up with the hefty task of suspending our disbelief that Richard is in fact, not a moron. Even though leaving his kids with his fiancee, that they hate, stranded in the middle of nowhere without a car on top of a bunch of other factors that I will not spoil is completely moronic. Fine. What's next?

Well, quite the slow burn. The Lodge does a really good job of building tension. While it's slow, it's not slow enough to be boring and even though it heavily foreshadows the conclusion, it does keep you guessing whether or not you have put together all the pieces. It's frequent use of doll houses gives me major Hereditary vibes, even though this screenplay was technically around first. I think that works in this film's favor though, because we all know how that movie ended. Maybe this will be similar.

I'm torn on this film. Keough is fantastic and her backstory had potential to be an entire movie itself, but they never go into it. The overall feel of is tense and perfect, but it is just so implausibly stupid. The ending isn't a huge surprise, it's practically spelled out for you, but the film does keep you guessing on whether or not there's more to it...but there isn't. You'll leave the movie thinking (highlight for spoiler)
 ---- fuck them kids -----

Recommedned: No, but also watch it and tell me I'm not alone in thinking it's stupid.

Grade: C-

Memorable Quote: "You're dating a psychopath." - Aiden (Jaeden Martell)