The Lodge (dirs. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala), 2020

Religious iconography is abundant at the lodge and it unsettles Grace Marshall (Riley Keough). Grace has weaseled her way into a family vacation with her partner, Richard (Richard Armitage), and his two children Aidan and Mia. Their mother (a brilliant cameo by Alicia Silverstone) committed suicide earlier that year after learning her ex-husband would be finalizing the divorce to marry Grace. Needless to say, Aidan and Mia are no fan of Grace, or even possibly their father. Grace herself has been touched by suicide, as she was the sole survivor of a mass suicide of a cult, led by her abusive father, as a young girl. Richard, a journalist, seemingly met Grace while researching cults for a novel.

Is Grace a sinister presence? She appears as a frail young woman, toy-dog included, who is meekly attempting to gain access to the children. The trip has even been planned in such a manner that Richard will have to drive back to the Boston region for work, before returning before Christmas, allowing Grace to bond with his bitter children. Richard is set-up as the reliable narrator, as when he departs, the film goes off the deep end (in an interesting way, of course). His reliability realistically should be questioned, as he seems to have a habit of becoming romantically involved with women dealing with past traumas. While his first wife, Laura, is a bit of a mystery—her suicide and behavior leading up to it, suggest she herself was a troubled individual. It seems Richard likes his women to be projects and, if the story were to go in different directions, I could see him eventually leaving Grace for another young woman escaping trauma.

Regardless of his own taste, when Richard leaves Grace continues to have difficulty bridging a relationship with his children. As she begins to open up to Mia and, eventually, Aidan it appears there may be hope for them to get along. Beneath the surface, however, Mia continues to reference happier times when her parents were together and Aidan writes menacing notes on foggy mirrors as Grace showers. After falling asleep one night, Grace awakens to see the Christmas décor she had adorned the lodge with gone, as well as a gas heater, and the power out as a storm is setting in. She further investigates to discover almost all the food is gone as well as her clothing. Taking it as a prank from Aiden and Mia, she storms into their room to find it is empty as well. Aiden mentions she has been sleep walking and we, the audience, have been witness to her traumatic dreams of her father and cult haunting her through the Catholic iconography of the lodge.

As Grace deteriorates mentally, we question what is real and what simply are visions of an unreliable narrator (and all three we follow have reasons not to be trusted). The answers to our questions may not be completely shocking, as there only are minute options available. Further, some may find the lengths traveled to make the story believable too far-fetched. These are fair responses to the film. I, for one, have never been one requiring a twist to be a total surprise, nor do I doubt certain motivations. The ending itself likely will not work for most, but I found The Lodge to be a very intriguing psychological thriller which confronts two traumas: that of religion and that of a broken family (now, generally I don’t consider divorce a trauma, but I guess if it leads your mother to put a pistol in her mouth, traumatic it is…).