When Holly's dark secret is accidentally uncovered by her new emotionally unstable neighbor Tom, they are pulled into a violent confrontation with her father, who will do anything to keep the secret hidden.
A troubled teenager accidentally uncovers a dark secret involving his neighbour in The Winter Lake. Tom (Anson Boon) has recently moved with his mother Elaine (Charlie Murphy) to his great-grandfather’s farmhouse in the Irish countryside. Elaine holds a disdain for Tom, whose violent behaviour was the catalyst for their moving out of the city, with Tom spending his days scavaging for skulls in the countryside. One day Tom is shocked to discover a burlap sack in a nearby lake, containing the skeletal remains of an infant. Around the same time, Tom befriends his mischievous neighbour Holly (Emma Mackey), who lives with her father Ward (Michael McElhatton). Tom soon discovers that Holly knows about his discovery and the dark secret she has been hiding.
The Winter Lake is an Ireland/Canada co-production from first-time filmmaker Phil Sheerin. The film stars Anson Boon (1917, Crawl) as troubled teen Tom, who is always carrying around a boxcutter and collecting animal skulls from the wilderness. An introvert with a strained relationship with his mother Elaine, played by Peaky Blinders’ Charlie Murphy, Tom begins to develop a friendship with his neighbour Holly, played by Sex Education‘s Emma Mackey, who takes him out for a good time robbing slot machine tokens and chatting with walkie talkies. However, Tom has to soon deal with the troubling elements of Holly’s life, including her bullying ex-boyfriend Col (Mark McKenna) and her complicated relationship with her father Ward, played by Game of Thrones’ Michael McElhatton.
It doesn’t really take too long to figure out where the plot of The Winter Lake is going, especially after Holly enters Tom’s room early in the film and spots the burlap sack he found in the lake with a very shocked response. However, Phil Sheerin takes quite a bit of time building up to the main crux of the story, with much of the first half of the film being little more than filler for a film that is ultimately a straightforward thriller. Even the side plot that involves confrontations with Holly’s ex-boyfriend Col seems to only be in the film to demonstrate how Tom is prone to fits of violence, which plays a part later on in the film.
While Anson Boon and Emma Mackey are somewhat relatable as the central protagonists of Tom and Holly, I found the rest of the characters in the film to be somewhat cliched caricatures. Charlie Murphy as Elaine in particular doesn’t really have much to do for most of the film, other than to talk to Tom with disdain about his behaviour, only to admit later in the film that she is a terrible mother. Michael McElhatton fairs slightly better as Ward, though the turn the character makes in the second half does come a bit out of the blue, unless you took the casting of the actor best known for playing Roose Bolton on Game of Thrones as a hint to the character’s trajectory.
Altogether, I will say that The Winter Lake is ultimately a fine film, but not one I was really able to get into.