THREE PEAKS: A Chilling Take On Budding Families

On a recent family vacation, I found myself jolted awake by a thump. My nephew had fallen out bed, and luckily, I was able to sweep him up before pain and confusion could trigger a crying jag. We are close enough that I can provide that comfort, that I can lull him to sleep, that I can make him feel safe, but I am not his parents, a fact he constantly reminds me of in deliberate, forceful ways.

If you will allow me a statement of the obvious: kids are abrupt like that. They rage and cry and tell you exactly what’s on their minds; unless, of course, they have discovered manipulation, and even then their attempts at cajoling are usually painfully obvious. You pretty much know where you stand with them, except that their opinion can change on a dime, and it’s these ups and downs that make relationships with them with them difficult.

That strange sway is at the core of Three Peaks, a drama that sees an aspiring family trying to come together over a holiday. Aaron (Alexander Fehling) is achingly close to making it happen; his relationship with his girlfriend, Lea (Bérénice Bejo) is intimate and comfortable. She comes with a boy, though, who is more aloof towards this addition to his inner circle. The trip slowly turns into a standoff between boy and man, with their ages hardly leveling the field.

Forcing The Unnatural

At its heart, Three Peaks is a traditional kind of potboiler: you isolate a small group, highlight some existing tension, and wait for it to bubble over. Writer/director Jan Zabeil wastes no time getting this going, with the three hiking to a remote cabin in the Italian mountains and staying in this chilly idyll for the vast majority of the film. No one comes in and no one gets out. It’s as if they set a challenge for themselves, to figure out how they fit together, and dressed it up as a vacation.

The setting is no simple place of beauty, though. Every loose rock, foggy morning, and yes, every peak becomes a pointed metaphor, all captured with razor-sharp allure by cinematographer Axel Schneppat.

If, like me, you understand nature to be a rather unforgiving place, then you may catch on to the trap sooner rather than later. Aaron is quite clearly pushing Lea and the boy to let him all the way into their family, and with every rearranged bed and extra bag carried he’s wheedling his way in further and further. In nature, if you push yourself too far you’ll likely end up in a dangerous spot. The same is true for Aaron, and with every maneuver you can feel his position getting more precarious.

Timing The Reveals

While Three Peaks is an intricate examination of the way families are made and broken, it’s all pretty laser-focused on that one idea, so it’s got to mete out its revelations slowly to sustain the drama. This is where Zabeil wavers a bit, keeping early moments of menace a bit too subdued and not hitting the ending with quite the punch it needed.

Granted, Zabeil is not going for a loud film. The pace and obscurity of early scenes makes it clear that you’re in for a moody, languid piece, and he succeeds at creating a hypnotic puzzle box. But eventually the hanging menace needs to coalesce into a singular threat, and the hints are not lingered on long enough for that to happen.

At one point, there’s an incident with a saw. It’s not gruesome or gory, and it occurs early enough in the film that its intent should be ambiguous. But it’s a key escalation of the mind games, and the resulting injury should be more clear. Instead, it is kept at the edge of the frame and is never mentioned again. It left me questioning what I had seen, and not in a way that pushed my uneasiness forward. Instead it was just narratively confusing, and there’s a few points like this where a second or two of additional footage would’ve made the situation more clear and intriguing.

A Few Steady Hands

Three Peaks is, if you hadn’t caught on, a small film. The cast is basically three people and the crew was small, giving no one a place to hide if they weren’t up to standard. Luckily, everyone involved pulled off their parts swimmingly, including child actor Arian Montgomery.

Montgomery’s role as the boy in this trio is surprisingly large, and he’s intended to be a rather impenetrable kid. He waffles back and forth in his relationship with Aaron, and how much he is doing on impulse or in cold calculation is rarely clear. The movie really comes down to that relationship, and Montgomery thankfully is playing every moment straight and not giving an ounce of child actor ham.

Part of that credit should go to Fehling and Bejo as well, who were almost certainly leading him through scenes. Even apart from the kid, their work together is incredibly naturalistic, showing a familiarity and comfort that makes their whole relationship feel truly on the brink of moving to the next level. Even their disagreements feel lived-in, conversing in a way that makes them seem like the continuation of old arguments.

It’s Zabeil, though, whose job it was to hold this delicate thing together, and that every aspect of the film works in congruence to wind up tension is thanks to him. In only his second feature, he shows a remarkable control of tone and a deft ability to layer metaphors without breaking the film’s spell. Looking back, it’s shocking that such a smart film doesn’t feel overly written, which marks Zabeil as the kind of filmmaker who could make a real splash in the arthouse world going forward.

Conclusion: Three Peaks

Three Peaks transforms the emotional labor of building a family into real, tangible threats, slowly building to a conclusion that feels both inevitable and horrifying. It may not be the most optimistic take on a surrogate father’s role in a family, but its brutal honesty makes for a captivating descent.

Did Three Peaks hold your attention? What aspects captivated or turned you off? Let us know in the comments!

Three Peaks opens in New York City June 28th and will expand to select US cities.