My Thoughts on Keeper
Osgood Perkins certainly likes to keep busy, after last years Longlegs and this years release of The Monkey, he has now released Keeper (With The Young People to come in 2026!)
Perkins isn't giving us anything straightforward with Keeper, where the film opens on a collection of disconnected images that don’t explain themselves at all, and they create a vague discomfort that somewhat sets the tone of what to expect.
And when the film finally introduces Liz (Tatiana Maslany), and Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland), you feel a little bit of calm after the opening as we watch them head out to a modern cabin deep in the woods, that kind of looks like something out of a design magazine.
That peace an calm doesn’t last though, as one night, Malcolm’s cousin Darren shows up uninvited - he’s loud, tactless, and doesn’t seem to care that he’s intruding on someone else’s getaway.
His date, Minka, is the total opposite - silent, stiff, and oddly distant, who just drifts around quietly, almost like she’s somewhere else entirely, but their arrival cracks the mood of the cabin in a way that felt intentional, as if the film wanted to warn me that the comfortable bubble around Liz and Malcolm was never going to hold.
Perkins’ approach here is very slow and deliberate, and I normally appreciate when a director doesn’t rush, but I suspect this pacing won't be to everyone's taste which features some puzzling stretches, but it does make the tension feel more personal.
Of course, the downside is that you want answers, and the movie refuses to give them, and that’s part of Perkins’ style, as he seems to prefer suggestion over explanation, implying what might be lurking around the edges rather than pointing to anything directly.
Once Malcolm gets called back to the city for work though, the film shifts, and Liz is suddenly alone in this wide, glass walled structure surrounded by nothing but trees and shadows, and the cabin, which originally felt like an impressive vacation spot, starts to seem fragile and exposed.
Perkins builds the suspense not by throwing big scares at the screen, but by letting isolation do the work, where the woods feel too quiet, the rooms feel too open, and you're not entirely sure if someone was watching Liz, or if Liz only felt like someone was watching her.
The story lets the questions form gradually: Is Liz imagining things? Is there something actually wrong with the cabin? Is someone else involved?
The technical side of the movie is exceptionally strong, where Jeremy Cox’s cinematography makes the woods feel enormous and unforgiving while keeping the cabin almost too bright and exposed at times, and the contrast between the natural darkness outside and the clean, modern design inside gives the movie a strange tension - like the two worlds don’t belong together.
Edo Van Breemen’s score adds even more unease, where it creeps in gently, then swells at just the right moments without overwhelming the scenes, and the production design also contributes to this as well.
The transitions in the movie are all pretty smooth too with some sometimes dreamlike, overlapping scenes that make you question things, and it’s the kind of editing that supports the story instead of calling attention to itself.
And then there’s Tatiana Maslany, who carries most of the film on her own once Malcolm leaves, and she does it with an understated intensity, where she doesn’t overact or push the emotional beats too hard, she lets the fear show through small gestures and quiet reactions.
Unfortunately I thought the big reveal felt a bit thinner than I had hoped for after all the build up, and it felt like it should have been much larger than what it ultimately delivered, and while I didn’t hate the ending, I was hoping for a bit more impact from it.
I do appreciate what Perkins was aiming for here, and it was more than watchable, and even though the conclusion didn’t fully satisfy me, the rest of the film held my attention with its mood, character, and craft.
Keeper is an interesting movie, that I suspect will probably get some very mixed reviews, but I enjoyed it for the most part.