Stillwater is a 2018 thriller about a weekend camping trip among six old friends that turns tragic after one dies under mysterious circumstances.
What is it about camping in movies? Either you’re in for a teen sex romp (with or without homicidal axe-wielding maniacs) or a devastating human tragedy (with or without homicidal axe-wielding maniacs). With Nino Aldi‘s Stillwater, we get the latter (sort of) and a bit of a mystery in a film that ties together a number of usual suspects in an unusual setting, being a slightly maddening experience that is loaded with potential and plenty of good twists.
On a remote campsite along the lakes of the Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, six old high school friends – Dawson (Tyler Ritter), Leech (Eric Michael Roy), Willie (Paul Elia), Richie (Aldi), Cooper (Ryan Vincent) and Jack (Travis Quentin Young) – meet for a weekend of drinking and playing catch up, the gang canoeing ashore with tents, beers, GoPros … and a disco ball. All is good until down the trail come three more from the old days, Fauna (Carlena Britch), Vera (Georgie Guinane) and ‘The Wizard’ (Mike Foy), Goth-types who were invited by Leech. After some harsh words, they all agree to at least make a night of it and go their separate ways in the morning, The Wizard packing some potent pot to pacify the mood. While they toke up, drink and reminisce, walls come down and they all begin to bond. However, it won’t last long.
The film starts in the present with one of the campers in a police interview room, looking particularly rough and decidedly distressed. Cops are searching for answers about something very bad that happened in the woods and so we take a series of flashback trips to find out, partying with the gang for a night of powerful drugs and excessive drinking. Unfortunately, the next morning, they awake to a real problem as Coop is found dead at the foot of a rocky cliff. How he got there and why are only the start of a number of mysteries that emerge as the friends try to piece it all together, though there are secrets at play and as the cops press for answers, things begin to unravel.
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It might seem that I’ve spoiled much of the story, but in truth, not at all. Discovering what happened to Coop is the cornerstone of the film’s marketing campaign, the mystery being the thing. It’s a classic setup, filling a room – or in this case a campground – with possible suspects and having them go at each other’s throats with paranoia and accusations, while more and more trouble closes in around them. Aldi uses the setting well, the deep woods a clever location for such a thing, the men totally out of their element and isolated from the rest of the world. It’s a pretty effective stage on which to throw these people into turmoil.
While the ensemble cast might have been better trimmed back a bit, and some of the dialogue doesn’t always ring true, there are plenty of good performances, especially from Elia, who emerges as a voice of reason. That becomes essential as the chaos builds and the story continues to take some serious bends, descending these once close friends into a sort of Lord of the Flies mentality. It all leads to a well-earned end that flips things on its ear, helping a lot to push Stillwater above the expected. This is a solid psychological thriller well worth a watch.