Keeper Review - Osgood Perkins' Romantic Getaway
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Director Osgood Perkins has already proven himself to be an up-and-coming talent in the horror sphere. With a discography including the Saturn Award winning Longlegs and darkly comedic The Monkey, the American filmmaker has established his own unique brand around the disturbingly uncomfortable and weird. Perkin’s latest offering is no exception to this rule, however it may leave you wondering, has he taken it too far?
Keeper begins like many films of its genre, with a romantic cabin getaway. We are introduced to couple Liz (Tatiana Maslany) and Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) as they celebrate their one year anniversary, the two appearing to be not quite harmonious but stable in their relationship. If it weren’t for the montage of women in different eras breaking the fourth wall, gazing lovingly, frowning, then screaming in pain, everything would appear unblemished. However we as an audience are encouraged to scrutinise every minutia as we suspect our protagonist Liz is bound to meet a similar fate.
This sense of foreboding does not settle as the pair cross the boundary into Malcolm’s cabin and the power imbalance seems to shift further in favour of the owner. The interior design (courtesy of Danny Vermette), is all angles and edges, everything appears polished and kept, as if no human life has ever stepped through the door. This makes Malcolm's jokes about the ineptness of his housekeeper even more unusual as he explains she leaves a chocolate cake as an apology, the dessert in question sat ominously in a little brown box on the dining room table.
Every odd interaction accumulates to create an atmosphere you wish to crawl away from and suddenly the romance of the situation feels more like a claustrophobic fever dream. Each intimate moment is interrupted or soiled, as seen when Malcom’s misogynistic cousin Darren (Birkett Turton) pops around uninvited with his date Minka (Eden Weiss) who he continuously degrades and berates for not speaking English. However the model is more powerful than she is given credit for as she warns Liz in a moment of privacy that the cake “tastes like shit”.
What follows next descends into a hazy madness and as the sense of isolation escalates, so does the loosening of reality. We begin to see haunting, inhuman figures sitting in chairs and looming in corners of the house, never taking action yet always present. Whilst these moments are genuinely haunting, they are often too separate to be a constant threat, instead we’re predominantly left in the company of Liz as she stumbles through the few days in a state of uncertain delirium.
Unfortunately, despite the character being played confidently by Maslany (whose performance anchors the majority of the production), her solitariness throughout makes her an unrelatable protagonist. The few interactions she has with the outside world come in the forms of short phone calls and we rarely see her in a moment of sanity. Instead we are subjected to a distant look, her paper-thin characterisation making her not necessarily unlikeable, but shallow.
The build-up, although drawn-out, is arguably the most rewarding section of the film. As more is slowly revealed and tensions reach their climax, a deeper, more complex tale is expected to be hiding underneath. Unfortunately this isn’t the case, instead a disappointing finale tries to cobble together an explanation for previous events and fails in its job of haunting the audience or leaving a lasting impression. What was an intriguing, slightly slow psychological horror becomes a lazy supernatural allegory for the oppression of women and the evil intentions of man. This familiar story had the opportunity to be retold with nuance, however the production loses all of its precision as feelings of dread morph into ones of confusion. The final images of the film are definitely memorable, however I am unsure whether it is for the right reasons.
Overall, Keeper is a tale of two halves yet redeems itself with its artsy visuals and assured performances. Although undeniably beautiful in an aesthetic sense, the film fails itself when required to impress narratively and when it's needed the most.
Keeper is in cinemas now.
