**This post contains MINOR spoilers**
The Story- Six months after pushing to finalize a divorce from his wife, Laura (Alicia Silverstone), Richard (Richard Armitage) plans a getaway during the Christmas season with his new fiancée, Grace (Riley Keough), his son, Aiden (Jaeden Martell), and his daughter, Mia (Lia McHugh). The trip to the family’s lodge gets off to a rocky start, and things take a bizarre turn for the worst as time passes.
Grace is forced to deal with her troubled past and a series of strange occurrences, while juggling the responsibilities for taking care of a disgruntled Aiden and Mia. Richard is the only person, who can ease the tensions between Grace, Aiden, and Mia, but there’s also a chance the group is experiencing an unprecedented disturbance…..
My Thoughts- Is Grace a bad person? Well, of course not. The problem is, she’s stuck in an impossible situation trying to earn acceptance and trust from two kids, who clearly hate her. Riley Keough delivers a strong and sympathetic performance, full of emotion and anger, when the situation calls for it.
Early on in the movie, you can clearly see Grace is TRYING to do everything she can do to carefully ease her way into Aiden and Mia’s lives. Grace is sincerely apologetic, when she unknowingly puts on Laura’s beanie. But on the other side of that, you can understand Grace’s need to stand up for herself, to be an authority figure, because she has to show Aiden and Mia that she’s not a pushover.
It’s hard to not feel any sympathy for Grace, when the story takes a dark turn towards the end. The flashbacks from Grace’s past in the cult, with her father as the leader tells the story of a woman, who truly suffered through hell. To say she didn’t have a normal childhood would be an understatement. Richard, Aiden, and Mia? They were all supposed to be her second chance at happiness and a normal life. More kudos to Riley Keough, because she really drives home the idea of this kind woman, who didn’t deserve what happened to her at the lodge.
Aiden and Mia? You also have to understand, where they’re coming from. Two kids, who deeply love their mother, so when they look at Grace, all they’re going to see is a soulless home-wrecker, who destroyed their family. You could say Aiden is the stronger one in the duo, while Mia, the younger sibling, clings to her toy doll that resembles Laura.
Jaeden Martell hits all the right notes, as the angsty and stubborn teenager, who flat out refuses to give Grace a fair chance. Lia McHugh does a good job, as the young daughter, who’s still a vulnerable kid at heart, following her older brother’s lead for guidance and a shoulder to lean on. The dynamic between Aiden and Mia is one of the bigger highlights in the movie. They share a tight big brother/little sister bond. They’re a team, and they rely on each other, for good and bad reasons.
The Lodge cleverly fits the pieces of the puzzle for the family drama together, because you can clearly see and understand everyone’s point of view here. Grace wanting to earn her way into a family. Richard trying his best to please Aiden, Grace, and Mia, while he tries to embrace his own happiness with Grace. Aiden and Mia rebelling against Grace replacing their mother, and a heartbroken Laura, who’s not ready to move on with her life.
The Lodge also works as an unconventional Christmas horror film. If we’re making comparisons, it’s not as Christmassy as the Silent Night, Deadly Night films, the Black Christmas remake, or Krampus (2015). The Lodge has a far more serious tone compared to those films.
Still, it’s set during the Christmas season. Before the story takes a deep dive into the dark side, the lodge is decorated for Christmas, and you’ll see Christmas presents. It’s not festive, and there’s no real cheeriness before the chaos starts. The Lodge slowly injects a crippling poison into of the bigger holidays with bitterness, tension, loss, and family drama. A deep sadness hits at a certain point, because maybe there’s a chance a good and happy Christmas celebration could’ve healed any open wounds.
Religion plays a big part in the story here. Grace never had a chance. She was corrupted at an early age by her father, Aaron (Danny Keough), a fanatical cult leader. For Grace, religion is the boogeyman that just won’t go away, a leech sucking her soul dry. Brainwashing, and towards the end, religion is used as a guilt tripping mechanism and a scare tactic on both sides. Also, the found-footage from Grace’s life in the cult and the mass suicides are a prime example for how religion can be turned into something evil, or used as a deadly weapon in the wrong hands.
Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s work behind the camera is admirable. So many little nuances and subtle storytelling with the shots of the black balloons floating into the sky, Richard touching Grace’s leg and Aiden’s reaction to it. Grace smiling at Mia in the mirror, and of course Mia doesn’t reciprocate the kind gesture. Going back to religion, crosses are not a sign of comfort or reassurances here. Crosses appear in one form or another throughout the movie. When you see a cross, something bad just happened, something bad is about to happen, or they appear during a stretch of hopelessness.
I absolutely loved the zoomed out shots, primarily during certain scenes in the lodge. A calming family retreat? No, the zoomed out shots gives the impression that this ordinary lodge is a spooky and creepy place.
And I can’t forget about Grace, Aiden, and Mia watching John Carpenter’s The Thing! The Thing (1982) is a great choice for a cabin fever movie. Of course, you won’t see any aliens in The Lodge, but a group of people stuck out in the middle of nowhere during a snowstorm, fighting to survive a dangerous threat with limited resources and no means of transportation? You can easily connect the dots between both movies. It’s right there. As far as timing and placement goes, you could say that particular scene from The Thing mirrors and lines up with The Lodge right before things really start going downhill.
A lot of layers for The Lodge. Suffering through mental illnesses is a big one, if we’re focusing on Grace and Laura. For different reasons, Grace and Laura struggled to hold it together. Two tragic characters connected to each other, starting new lives, with bleak futures, concluding in disastrous results. It’s so bad to the point, where everyone would’ve been better off not crossing paths.
The shots of the little house diorama throughout the movie works as an unusual and creepy style of foreshadowing. It’s a morbid and detailed replica of the lodge, and there’s a dark irony behind it, when you realize the diorama is also a child’s fancy toy.
Winter, snow, and freezing temperatures. The Lodge is a cold film in more ways than one. The isolated setting is perfect. The quiet lodge, deep in the woods, during a snowstorm and miles away from civilization adds to the dread and impending sense of doom throughout the movie. It’s a slow, slow burn build to the finale, and for me, it occasionally drags, but The Lodge is still a truly outstanding film. The Lodge plays like a psychological drama, featuring some well-placed horror elements. The nighttime scenes at the lodge, and Grace’s nightmare sequences balances things out on the horror side. And Top notch directing, because there’s no denying The Lodge is a beautifully shot film.
A terrific cast all around. Alicia Silverstone makes the most of her short screen time. Riley Keough is simply phenomenal in the leading role, a powerhouse performance that excels during Grace’s descent into madness, when you finally realize she’s just too far gone. The ending is a nail-biter, but it’s not your typical nail-biter. The Lodge’s ending leaves a few nerve-racking questions. Risky chances, no positive options, and IF anyone survived, no one has a chance of living a normal life after two big tragedies happening so close together.
Rating- 9/10
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