Eden Lake tells the story of a young, white middle class couple that go on a romantic vacation to a hooligan infested resort. As this beloved site of the lower class is being taken over and constructed by the richer ‘yuppies’, the locals of the village are not welcoming to the nice couple on their holiday break. Eden Lake raises many issues of representation including gender, class and age.
The film begins by setting up the perfect, stereotypical, middle class couple. Jenny is played as a caring, gentle and sensitive primary school teacher, we see this in the opening scene as she is shown taking care of her class of young children. Her boyfriend, Steve, evidently makes enough money from his job to allow Jenny to do what she enjoys doing. Eden Lake plays on this female stereotype as she later on leaves her maternal approach, which she attempts to prove again at the lake, as she tries to talk to and possibly help the lonely child in the woods, as well as the way in which she seeks to defend for herself against the youth killers, which I will explore further.
The male participant in the relationship is represented as ‘the perfect man’. Steve has a well-paid job, a perfect relationship, a family car and a relatable sense of humor. Withal, he is sensitive, but still manages to maintain his manly technique right from the beginning, where Jenny mocks him for relying on his SatNav and tells him that he is “Such a boy”. However which is an act, the manly behavior, or the sensitive gentility? Steve’s manly pretentiousness is explored further as he reveals aggression towards the hoodies, first when they cycle through a red light, disrupting his driving, and again when he assumes it was them that left the glass bottle under his car, to burst his tyre, which he manages to very quickly fix. As expected by Jenny and the waitress at the café, Steve reacts to the kids and refuses to be bullied into leaving. It could also be seen as Steve’s sensitive and reasonable side being the fraud personality that he fakes to please his girlfriend, as we see Steve becoming aggressive, chasing after the kids, however when he looses them, he decides to do the ‘sensible’ thing and asks around for the parents of the hoodlums, to report their behavior, although this approach might have worked well in their suburban, middle class town, their naivety of the lower class is mocked as Steve’s enquiry is rejected by a strangely defensive answer, “Not my kids!” The irony in this is that the film satirizes the male stereotype as after being laughed at by the waitress for being worried about a group of kids is unmanly of him, and that he should not worry about them, Steve is the first to be killed by the gang, uncommonly early in the film.
Eden Lake’s representation of gender also satirizes the female stereotype as Jenny, the loving, caring schoolteacher naively believes that Adam is helping her to escape, however he leads her back to the gang, to watch her boyfriend being killed. Jenny, then happily escapes the gang, sacrificing Adam, a little boy, as the gang burn him to death. Suddenly, Jenny’s affectionate, tender way is forgotten, as she learns from her mistake and before Connor, a young gang member, manages to give his help, she cuts and kills him with a broken piece of glass. Finally, when she escapes with a stolen van, she does not hesitate to run over the innocent member, Paige.
Whilst the gang tortures their victims, the gang leader orders Paige to film the happenings on a mobile phone. The only girl in the gang is used to report the event rather than help out with the criminal acts.
Eden Lake represents two very different class systems throughout the film, Jenny and Steve are middle class, we see this by the big expensive car they drive their nice, probably expensive clothes and strangely through their choice of holiday. Although they could probably afford to stay in a very smart, expensive hotel in a resort destination, they decide to be alternative and go camping on a beautiful lake, which they can then show off to their friends. The rest of the characters belong to the lower class, this is shown through the stereotypical identities of the locals; the pub owner is a sexist shaved headed, bear bellied bloke. The mothers shout and hit their young children aggressively and their older children are murdering gang members.
Although the film represents the lower class in a stereotypical and horrid way, it also plays on how the middle class believe they are better than them and have more rights, as we see Steve becoming overly annoyed at the lower class gang when they cycle over a red light, however it is allowed when he does it. On Steve and Jenny’s first night in the resort, we experience the middle class mocking the behavior of the lower class, as Steve makes jokes about their accent and way of speaking. Furthermore, when the couple witnesses a mother shouting and hitting her young daughter, Jenny becomes upset as it contradicts her love of children. This could also debate the fact that the hooligan’s behavior is subject to bad parenting of the lower class.
The middle class is again satirized, Jenny is represented as naïve and simpleminded, her failed attempt at rescuing her boyfriend from the gang was to use her Bluetooth to connect to Steve’s GPS on the phone. Her callow attempt at this and assumption that the lower class will not figure out what she is doing is a symbol of the middle class ignorance and leads to her death.
The fear of youth is highly explored in ‘Eden Lake’, the approach to the unruly teenagers reflects on the modern day society’s trepidation of youth. This is shown firstly, overall as the monsters in the film are killing ‘hoodies’. The imagery used to represent these teens are dangerous, lawless kids riding their bicycles laughing and disobeying laws. Tension is revealed on how to deal with misbehaving children, as the parents identify the kids as “Little terrors” ironically, they mean this in a light hearted manner, as it is expected of kids to misbehave, kids will be kids. However these kids are in fact terrorizing.
In conclusion, ‘Eden Lake’ brings up these issues of representation in all forms, in regards to gender, it presents both male and female, in regards to class, it presents two very different class systems, middle-class and lower-class. Finally, in regards to age it presents both the terrorizing youth, as well as the way in which the older generation view the young.
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