Amber Lake

Pyschologist Dr Patrick Thomas (Carmen Argenziano) invites his three daughters to his lake house. All three are from different mothers and don't know each other's existence. Patrick left Amber Thomas (Polly Cole) when she was 4 and she's a psychologically damaged writer. Amber Hannold (Mekenna Melvin) is hiding her damage with sarcasm and anger whose crazy mother was Patrick's patient. Amber Allen (Natalie Smyka) is outwardly flamboyant and happy. He uses his skills to diagnose each one's psychological problems and thereby angering all of them. Two days later, he's dead and Sergeant Eugene Stockard (Timothy V. Murphy) investigates. Each sister has a different version of events pointing to another sister as the suspect.

There is some interesting writing from Joe Robert Cole inspired from classics like Rashômon. It's a small budget indie. Everybody does a good job. I do wish for more time with Carmen Argenziano. He is by far the most experienced and most compelling actor. His character is actually the most fascinating. The cop is the weakest. His scenes are the most uninteresting and his character the most problematic. He really contributes nothing and should have limited screen time. The 3 ladies do a good job but I wish they have snappier dialog. I wonder if it would be more compelling if writer Amber is functionally mute. I just think some more directing skills and a more intense Hitchcockian feel is needed.

It is an unusual plot idea having a father with three daughters all from different mothers that he abandoned at birth. He invites all three of them, all with the name Amber & all having never met one another before this trip, to come up to his lake house for the weekend. In his mind I believe he was thinking of the psychology side of the affair above all else. As that was his main agenda from go. Well obviously this would never be a good idea, as there is just too much overwhelming emotion at one time for any one of the girls to process. I would say this was a Drama only, I certainly wasn't thrilled at any point and the film is more about psychology than anything else. I didn't feel for any of the characters & it lacked any serious emotion IMHO. The ending wasn't a surprise to me as I had thought it might be the case from the start. I would recommend this but only for Drama fans. My vote would be about 6/10. Certainly the vote box was massively stuffed as are the other 2 b.s. reviews. When will they learn how obvious they are?

Though the cinematography and location/sets were on a budget and while the actors were not notable for previous work the plot and story line were very well done. Had this project been afforded a healthier budget I believe this could have easily been a top contender in the box office. It was a great script on a strict budget but I enjoyed it immensely. I thought I had it figured out about half way through and just rode with the story and then ...boom.... I simply did not expect the ending. I would love to see more scripts from this writer . The directorship could have been a little better but at least it was not over played which would have made a low budget film intolerable. I would watch this again.

I found this movie on Netflix and was surprised at how decent it was as I had never heard of it. After their father, three individual daughters just met is found dead in the lake, the audience is taken through their individual accounts of what led up to the murder. The acting was pretty great considering the actresses were portraying mentally imbalanced people and the camera and direction were noticeably professional. It wasn't a huge production but dialogue, setting, cinematography, acting, etc, writing, was on point. It's a slow paced film but will keep you interested to see how it will end. I would definitely recommend this Independent movie to others to check out if they want to view something good and new. 7/10

Amber Lake is a great movie that will pull you in and keep you wondering what really happened until the very end. I don't want to tell much of the story as you really need to experience it yourself. Once you are done watching the movie, you will still be thinking about it. The three Ambers characters are extremely well portrayed and even though they are 'damaged' people, you will grow more sympathetic toward them as the movie goes on. As each Amber tells her side of the story, the other Ambers' characters appear different; sometimes very different and sometime just subtly. Mekenna Melvin's character had a wide range of emotion from being angry to being caring. Polly Cole's character was shown as homely and broken spirited but wanting to change but just can't. Natalie Smyka's character had a secret inner anger covered up by excessive perkiness (especially in an early scene ;-) ). Timothy V Murphy's Sergeant Stockard character was the investigative police office and very professional although he was a bit distracted by the Amber Allen character. Carmen Argenziano played the stoic, deliberative, A-hole father for whom you feel less sympathetic as the film progressed. All of the folks who worked on this film, in front or behind the camera, did a wonderful job telling this intriguing story. As I said you will think about this movie long after you have watched it.