Oz Perkins' latest film, Keeper, stands out for its visuals, but fails to captivate us with a strong script. Intended to serve as a metaphor for dysfunctional relationships where both men and women make mistakes, the film doesn't quite manage to be as terrifying as it aims to be. It's supposed to be a cautionary tale, but due to its unconvincing script, I don't think it's as chilling as it should be, which is a real shame. I've seen people jokingly call this film Men, Jr., and I understand why. Both films have good intentions, but don't quite deliver on their promises.
Keeper tells the story of Liz, a young woman who has been dating a doctor named Malcolm for about a year. After all this time, Malcolm finally takes her to his cabin in the woods for a weekend away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Liz has never been a country girl; she was born and raised in the city, and it's clear from the start that this isn't her scene, but she seems to take her relationship with Malcolm very seriously, so she's willing to make an effort. But once they arrive at the cabin, things change a bit. She hears strange noises, he becomes distant, and she doesn't get the rest and relaxation she was promised.
Director: Osgood Perkins
Writer: Nick Lepard
Stars: Tatiana Maslany, Rossif Sutherland, Birkett Turton
Keeper begins with Liz and Malcolm traveling as a happy couple, but when they arrive at the cabin, Liz hears some strange noises that she ends up ignoring. She also sees a cardboard box with bloody fingerprints on it. When she asks Malcolm about it, he says the caretaker left them a cake. I think the cake is the first sign of something unusual in this whole situation. Later that night, after enjoying a delicious fish dinner (more on the fish later), Liz is in the mood for some intimacy, but they are interrupted by Malcolm's cousin, Darren, and his companion, Minka.
Darren is already quite strange, and he tells the couple that his companion doesn't speak a word of English. She's a perfect model, with beautiful hair and eyes, exactly the type of girl someone like Darren could never win over. But, when Darren suspiciously pulls Malcolm aside for a moment, Minka points to the cake and tells Liz that it tastes awful. She says it very seriously, but there's definitely something odd about the whole conversation.
I think it's at this point that you realize Liz, who has also been talking to her friend, is picking up on signs that something unusual or strange is happening, but she's somehow too invested in her relationship with Malcolm, or so obsessed with having this life with him, a doctor, and being the perfect couple, that she chooses to ignore the signs. Shortly after, following Darren and Minka's departure, Liz immediately makes comparisons, mimicking Minka's "exotic" accent and talking about how Malcolm would also want a "brainless" girl. She's deliberately acting "different from other girls," precisely because she's wondering why Malcolm would choose her when she clearly sees similarities between him and his cousin. She seems very insecure and just wants to make sure Malcolm actually likes her.
This leads to Malcolm subtly forcing Liz to eat the cake, because his caregiver makes amazing cakes, even if she doesn't get anything else right. At this point, it becomes clear that this relationship is quite controlling. Liz reminds Malcolm that she's never liked chocolate, but he gives her a piece anyway, even saying it's the worst, as if that makes things better. It's at this moment that you realize the power dynamic is clearly unbalanced, because Liz silently eats the cake, even repeating Minka's words, "This tastes awful," and then forces herself to finish the entire piece, while Malcolm walks away.
Suddenly, Liz wakes up in the middle of the night and feels the urge to eat the entire cake with her hands. It seems to have blood and flesh in it, like some kind of ritualistic cake, but we later find out that she wasn't supposed to eat the whole thing. She was only supposed to eat one piece. Why? Because it acts as a sedative so the creatures can basically devour Liz. But the difference here is that Liz looks a lot like her mother, and somehow Malcolm didn't realize this would mean they would practically worship her instead of eating her.
That's why she was so eager to eat all the cake, because it connected her to all the people who had come together to form this creature. An amalgamation of the women he had been with before Liz. It's interesting to note that the sacrifices are always women he has been attracted to, rather than just some random guy or a friend. It always has to be a woman who is sacrificed.
Minka wasn't so lucky and ended up being attacked in the woods by a creature that seemed to be camouflaged as a moss-covered rock. From what Malcolm tells Liz during the big reveal, it's clear that the creatures can choose how they present themselves to someone, so, as unsettling as the woman with the bag over her head was, Liz could have encountered something far worse. The creatures are convinced that Liz is their mother, and Malcolm, being over 200 years old, knows for certain that she bears a striking resemblance to the woman he killed so many years ago.
When Liz faints in the river and wakes up in the basement, the creatures surround her and show her her mother's head, preserved in honey, with a bullet hole in her forehead, almost as if they were displaying it as a talisman. One could argue that her time in the river was almost like a baptism, preparing her for rebirth. And the way the stream appears around her throughout the film could be interpreted as a symbol of the passage of time, with her emerging unchanged more than two centuries later.
With the forest as a backdrop and the creatures' gangly, long-limbed aesthetic (a long-neck joke would fit here, but I didn't make one), they evoke the fairies of Celtic mythology. If this were true, then Liz could be an avatar of Danu, the mother of the Irish gods, which might explain the unsettling eyes she has at the end of the film, identical to those of the woman who gave birth to the creatures. Alternatively, from the way Malcolm describes her dancing naked in the woods under the moonlight, the woman could have been a witch, even without the pointy hat. The creatures could have been born as a result of a pact with the devil that would grant her immortality as long as she fed them fresh souls. After the woman's death, Darren and Malcolm took control of the creatures and appropriated the immortality the woman desired for herself.
When Liz arrives at the cabin, she looks through a glass window, breathes on it, and draws a heart. Later, while she's taking a relaxing bath, an invisible creature does the same at the window behind her. Under normal circumstances, seeing this heart appear alone behind her would terrify us, but in this case, it almost seems like a symbol of love and acceptance. It's as if they're thinking, "Oh, she loves us and the forest, and we love her." I'd say this is the first time we get a sign that the creatures aren't going to harm Liz, because they believe she's the reincarnation of their mother.
That's probably why she appears to them as a strange, distorted figure, made up of all the people she's eaten (how macabre). This doesn't scare her; it's a reminder of who she truly is, a caretaker (ouch!). In the same way, Liz already senses that something is wrong when she looks at the locket she found in the river, the same river she later falls into. Everything is connected because everything indicates that she is destined to be there.
In the ending of Keeper, the big twist is that Liz now takes Malcolm's place, and will likely become the immortal being who needs to make sacrifices for the creature. She is now part of the cycle, just like the river that keeps flowing, bringing more fish to the forest. She has now assumed the role, not only as their mother, but also as their main caretaker, their "Guardian." With Darren and Malcolm dead, Liz is now responsible for keeping the fairy beings of the forest alive. Similar to the ending of Midsommar, this is not a happy ending.
Liz simply went from being controlled by a man to being controlled by the creatures in a way. Sure, from the outside it may seem like she is everything to them and that she is important to them, but their only goal is to obtain those sacrifices, and they will do it however they want. On the other hand, she also dips Malcolm's head in a pot of honey, similar to how the mother's head was preserved. Apparently, honey is a common offering to fairy beings, so I guess that makes sense. Honey, nectar, and bumblebees are a good way to understand the creature and the offerings.
What I wonder is if the creature now has a preference for men, and if Liz will continue the tradition of offering him men instead of women. What constitutes a good sacrifice, and does it have to be a love interest? Earlier, we saw that there were twins in Malcolm's original family photo. It's implied that Malcolm also abandoned them to be devoured by the creature. I can't say for sure that Darren was in love with Minka, but that would make the sacrifice more impactful if it involved people the immortals loved. There are definitely some gaps in the story, because Darren and Malcolm could feed the creature anything, or rather, anyone, but they choose women.
Comments
Post a Comment