If "The White Lotus" season 3 was your first introduction to the awesome power that is Carrie Coon, all I can say is, welcome to the club.
The actress first made a name for herself in HBO’s "The Leftovers" (a show that might be just as criminally overlooked as Coon herself), and then went on to score small-but-memorable roles in everything from "Avengers: Infinity War" to "Ghostbuters: Afterlife."
These are all great performances, but if you’re looking for a full dose of Carrie Coon, you won’t do better than the 2024 crime thriller "Lake George." And lucky for you, the film just made its streaming debut on Hulu.
What's 'Lake George' about?
"Lake George" stars Shea Whigham (best known for "Boardwalk Empire" and several of the "Fast and Furious" movies) as Don, a middle-aged insurance adjuster who’s just finished serving a 10-year jail sentence. Don has no money, no prospects, and nobody to turn to for support.
He goes to the one guy he can think of: a gangster named Armen (Glenn Fleshler), who owes him a debt. But to get the money, Don needs to kill Armen’s girlfriend, Phyllis (Carrie Coon), for becoming a bit too involved in his criminal empire.
So, Don pays a visit to Phyllis a visit, but isn’t able to pull the trigger. Seeing her opening, Phyllis convinces her would-be assassin to turn on Armen instead, and the two of them set out to steal the money from his various stash houses.
From this simple premise, "Lake George" unspools in surprising ways, each stash house posing its own unexpected challenges.
At times, the movie feels like a modern take on "Midnight Run" with its odd-couple pairing forced to embark a crime-filled road trip. At other moments, it’s more like a Coen Brothers caper, mixing noir elements with violent slapstick comedy — there’s a scene involving a severed finger in Lake George that may rival "Fargo’s" infamous woodchipper.
Why you should stream 'Lake George'
In an interview with Far Out Magazine, Coon revealed that some of the movie’s most memorable moments were improvised.
“There’s a version of this script as you recognise that if you could play it straight down the middle, it would have some fidelity to genre,” she said. “But we were more interested in the version that was a little stranger, a little weirder, a little outside the box.”
Severed fingers aside, Coon’s performance brings an impressive depth to "Lake George," which might otherwise feel like a generic crime flick. Her character is frequently forced into dangerous situations where the only option is to talk her way out, and those escapes always feel earned.
More importantly, Phyllis comes across as a real person. Someone who’s a little too smart for her own good, but also a great judge of character. In other words, she’s exactly who you’d want sitting in your passenger seat on a long road trip.
To be clear, Phyllis is an extremely flawed character. Her plans don’t always work, and she’s not above resorting to violence. But that’s what makes her such a perfect role for Carrie Coon.
From "The White Lotus" to "The Leftovers," Coon has always excelled at playing imperfect humans who know right from wrong, but don’t always choose correctly. "Lake George" might just be the best example of her unique gift, giving the actress a chance to create a character who faces about a dozen incredibly tough decisions and surprises us with each choice she makes.
Stream "Lake George" on Hulu
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