\n\tHere\u2019s a tip for any movie character in 2025 considering a cute weekend getaway with a new partner: Don\u2019t. Turn that car around. Go back to the big city.<\/p>\n
\n\tDo not trade dorky inside jokes while you pull up to the driveway of that wooded hideaway. Do not exchange adoring glances and flirty innuendo as you unload, and definitely do not do so while trying to tamp down your gnawing misgivings about this getting-serious-but-not-yet-settled relationship.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tKeeper\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n
\tSurreal as a nightmare, and just as logical.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRelease date:<\/strong> Friday, Nov. 14 \n\tFail to heed this advice, and you will quickly find that picturesque country cabins are where the Heterosexual Horrors lie \u2014 that specific strain of nastiness that feeds on social constraints and assumptions surrounding men, women and the bonds of love and sex between them. It was true in Oh, Hi!<\/a>, it was true in Companion<\/a>, and it\u2019s true now in Keeper, a visually rich but narratively flimsy new thriller from Longlegs<\/a> and The Monkey<\/a> director Osgood Perkins<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tOur couple this time are Liz (Tatiana Maslany<\/a>), a free-spirited artist, and Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland<\/a>), a buttoned-up doctor. They\u2019ve been dating for a year, long enough that Liz is gushing to her friend about how happy she is with him but not, apparently, long enough that Malcolm knows better than to gift her a grandmotherly beige cardigan, of the sort this punky creative would never pick out for herself in a million years.<\/p>\n \n\tStill, poor taste in sweaters is hardly a red flag, much less when the man offering it is as handsome and sweet as Malcolm is. It\u2019s hard to blame a gal for wanting to stick around \u2014 especially once she eyes his jewel of a vacation property, fitted with floor-to-ceiling windows, plush furniture and impeccably tasteful decor courtesy of production designer Danny Vermette.<\/p>\n \n\tNo, the actual red flag is one only we are privy to. The film opens with a montage of nameless women across different eras and places smiling invitingly toward the camera, then frowning and glaring at it, and finally screaming while drenched in blood. What precisely is signified by these snippets, soundless aside from the moony Buddy Holly track playing over them, won\u2019t become clear until the third act. But you get the idea Liz could be headed for a similar fate.<\/p>\n \n\tEven without that context, Liz senses quickly that something is amiss. Upon entering the house, she notices a plain brown cake box, and eyes it with more trepidation than warranted even from someone who dislikes chocolate as much as she does. (\u201cI thought all women liked chocolate,\u201d Malcolm says apologetically, as he coaxes her to try a bite of the dessert anyway.)<\/p>\n \n\tBut she pushes away her unease, just as she grits her teeth through an unannounced dinnertime drop-by from Malcolm\u2019s boorish cousin, Darren (Birkett Turton), and his silent Eastern European model date, Minka (Eden Weiss) \u2014 and just as, the following morning, she resigns herself to a day alone when Malcolm is called away for work.<\/p>\n \n\tThe world of Keeper is claustrophobically small, limited to the cabin, multi-story but narrow, and its immediate environs, lush but isolated. For meaningful stretches, the only characters onscreen are Liz and Malcolm. For even lengthier ones, it\u2019s a one-woman party.<\/p>\n \n\tThe longer Liz stays in that house, the more her mind seems to slip into a Repulsion-esque surreality. She\u2019s plagued by daydreams, or maybe they\u2019re visions, of other women. She hallucinates grotesque supernatural presences \u2014 bizarrely proportioned figures, impossible mirror images \u2014 or maybe they really are there. She comes to from a nap she doesn\u2019t quite remember taking, only to find herself in another nightmare. When she is awake, she moves in an almost stoned-like haze: \u201cI feel like I took mushrooms,\u201d she tells a pal over the phone.<\/p>\n \n\tThat Liz descends so rapidly, before we\u2019ve had a chance to get to know who she is normally, renders her distant as a heroine. Despite the amount of time we spend trapped with her perspective, it can be tough to tell from scene to scene whether she\u2019s acting strangely or foolishly or just normally, and therefore how worried or disturbed we ought to be feeling.<\/p>\n
Cast:<\/strong> Tatiana Maslany, Rossif Sutherland, Birkett Turton, Eden Weiss
Director:<\/strong> Osgood Perkins
Screenwriter:<\/strong> Nick Lepard
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRated R,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 39 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n