Tag Archives: #mnightshyamalan

Knock at the Cabin

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Release: Friday, February 3, 2023

👀 Theater

Written by: M. Night Shyamalan; Steve Desmond; Michael Sherman

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Dave Bautista; Ben Aldridge; Jonathan Groff; Nikki Amuka-Bird; Abby Quinn; Rupert Grint; Kristen Cui

Distributor: Universal Pictures

 

***/*****

A compelling moral dilemma takes center stage in M. Night Shyamalan‘s new film Knock at the Cabin, a home invasion thriller set in remote Pennsylvania and at the edge of the apocalypse. Adapting the 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, Shyamalan may not be working from scratch, and by all accounts the book and the movie are different beasts, but for at least the first half this is one of his stronger efforts in some time. 

Knock at the Cabin finds the 52-year-old director working in rare R-rated territory, following only 2008’s The Happening. Spoiler alert, this experiment is a little more convincing, even if it fizzles out in the end. Thirty-something dads Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and Eric (Jonathan Groff) have taken their seven-year-old daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) to a quaint cabin in the Pennsylvania wilderness for some R&R. As Wen scouts the surroundings for grasshoppers to collect in her terrarium she is approached by a mountain of a man, Leonard (an outstanding Dave Bautista), who does everything he can to reassure the little girl he isn’t here to harm anyone.

The former wrestler embraces the opportunity to play a more nuanced, emotionally conflicted role and excels in it. A contradiction of menacing size and gentle demeanor, Bautista is the movie’s MVP by far. Leonard says he has urgent news to deliver and feels terrible about what it’s going to do to a nice family. Attempts to break the ice fail when three other individuals appear behind him, each carrying some kind of homemade weapon, causing Wen to flee inside to alert her parents. Leonard insists on diplomatic methods and repeatedly states a desire to avoid violence. But the best laid plans still end up with someone more fuzzy-headed than they should be, and a child bearing witness to more bloodshed than was ever intended.

The foursome — Leonard, a schoolteacher; Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), a nurse; Adriane (Abby Quinn), a restaurant cook; and Redmond (Rupert Grint), the loose cannon fresh off a stint in jail — claim to have been guided to this particular cabin after having experienced a shared vision of the end of days. They say they don’t know each other. With deep exhales they also state that the inhabitants are the only ones who can help prevent catastrophe, but in order to do so the family will have to sacrifice one of their own or else humanity will slip into an unending darkness. As if that’s not enough, the act has to be voluntary and suicide doesn’t count.

With his latest stress test Shyamalan proves to be more a master technician behind the scenes than a powerful messenger behind the pulpit. For what essentially amounts to a chamber piece, Cabin is a surprisingly dynamic viewing experience, chockablock with unconventional camera angles pulling us in further when we want to lean back. Other choices are commendably economic — once again a TV becomes an important narrative device to connect us to the outside world, although the service it provides is nowhere near as chilling as it was in Signs. And the way he integrates flashbacks is not as interruptive as it could be; in fact in some ways the unpleasantries dealt with here only add to the stress of the present.

Regrettably, it’s when the film goes big that it also gets weaker. In guiding us away from what might be to what actually is, Shyamalan struggles to make what’s preordained feel organic, to convince us that the choices being made are not the whims of a writer but rather the results of selflessness and excruciating introspection. Even worse, in choosing his own sentimental ending he invites mockery and criticism rather than profundity — not of his actors and the family they create, but of the logic that dictates who gets to live and who doesn’t. 

It’s not that Shyamalan is out of his depth thematically here; elements of faith and denialism have found their way into much of his work, whether it’s a priest having a personal crisis amidst an alien invasion or a kid coming to terms with the fact his dad is an actual superhero. (And in the aforementioned, other-R-rated offering, you just had to hold on to the hope he hadn’t lost his touch.) With Cabin, he gives us another provocative situation and draws out some great acting from his small cast. In the end, it may be a case where some things are just better left unexplained. 

Knock knock . . .

Moral of the Story: One of Shyamalan’s better efforts, despite its flaws. The performances (beyond Bautista) are all solid, as is the hook. A really strong first half gives way to a less satisfying third act where the direction becomes more forceful and in that way less natural. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 100 mins. 

Quoted: “Maybe the truth is that the end was happening long before we got to this cabin. And what we’re seeing now isn’t the fireworks. It’s just the final flickering sparks.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

Glass

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Release: Friday, January 18, 2019

👀 Theater

Written by: M. Night Shyamalan

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: James McAvoy; Bruce Willis; Samuel L. Jackson; Spencer Treat Clark; Sarah Paulson; Anya Taylor-Joy

Distributor: Universal Pictures

 

***/*****

All the pieces finally fall into place for M. Night Shyamalan and his long-gestating superhero trilogy with Glass, in part a direct sequel to 2017’s psychological thriller Split as well as a belated return to the awe-inspiring identity crisis established 19 years ago in Unbreakable. Glass is far from perfectly polished, but against all odds the third and final chapter not only justifies its own existence, it justifies everything leading up to it, notably the ending to the last installment.

For what it’s worth, Anya Taylor Joy wasn’t the only one being held captive that day. I was such a prisoner of the moment, convinced the writer/director had just written and directed himself into a corner he was at the same time being pressured into by modern industry trends. But this knee-jerk reaction failed to take into account that Shyamalan had wanted to expand upon ideas established in Unbreakable years ago but just couldn’t get a studio to bite on a Part 2. In fact Split‘s compellingly deranged anti-hero was extracted from a ditched subplot in Unbreakable and in (one of Shymalan’s favorite things) a twist of fate, that film, unlike its predecessor, was immediately embraced critically and commercially. And now here we are, at the end of the line — the culmination of what we should, I suppose, formally recognize as the Eastrail 177 Trilogy. Not a very sexy name, is it?

Glass technically begins three weeks after the conclusion of Split, reuniting us with David Dunn (Willis the Bruce) and his now-grown-but-still-believing son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark), running a little Bruce Wayne-like operation in the back of David’s own private security firm, with Joseph keeping online tabs on the seedy activity taking place in the shadows of metro Philadelphia while his father “goes for walks,” physically immersing himself in those shadows, brushing up against — well, you know how it works. We first see The Overseer, as he’s now known amongst internet fanbases, taking down a punk with a mean-spirited YouTube channel, confronting him in his own house and overpowering him by some margin in a bit of gleeful fan service.

The story proper is set into motion when David and the notorious kidnapper Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) are escorted to a remote psychiatric facility after a skirmish that spills out into the streets. Even though David successfully frees a group of high school cheerleaders Kevin and his multiple personalities (a.k.a. “The Horde”) have chained up in a warehouse, not everyone views his vigilantism as being in the best interests of the public. Kevin’s behavior is much less defensible; why they are both punished equally here kind of defies reason, but then again airtight logic has never been one of Shyamalan’s superpowers as a writer. Regardless, the pair are going to be having a little chat with a Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), who specializes in a very specific kind of delusion. The “I believe I am a superhero” kind of specific.

This of course is the same facility housing David’s nemesis, Elijah Price/Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson), who, despite his near-comatose appearance, is under the most severe scrutiny given his propensity for manipulation and deception. Dr. Staple’s job is to convince her patients that what they have been experiencing are merely complex coping mechanisms after having lived through trauma. Yet within the context of the entire saga, the character — less a human and more a plot device, granted — represents an evolution in perspective. Unbreakable posed the question of whether or not superheroes really walk among us and it did so by comparing the naivety of Joseph versus that of his father; the point of view was private, personal, highly contentious. In Glass that perspective is systematically denied. Instead this is about an institution that believes it has the ultimate perspective. As the woman in the white lab coat suggests, if superheroes are real why are there only three of them?

If you want dissenting opinions, you’ve come to the right place. I was really impressed with what Shyamalan was able to create on such a modest budget, funding the $20 million project himself. (I wonder what my life would be like if I had that amount to throw at one thing.) Budgetary constraints are on display everywhere: they explain why we are for a large portion of the film trapped more or less in a single room with a “field expert” who enjoys bludgeoning her patients (and us) with medical jargon and bureaucratese. They explain the incident in the parking lot, the pistol and the pothole — the latter representing a truly creative resolution for something we all saw coming. Yet I can’t say the low overhead necessarily enhances the experience, either; it’s never less than a nagging thought that the film might have gone a different direction with just a little more money behind it.

Whether that would have been a more satisfying direction is obviously speculative. Going out with a bigger bang might have been more visually gratifying, but it would also risk violating the code of understatement Shyamalan has remained faithful to. As it stands, there is a surprising amount of weight that accumulates at an emotional and psychological level, and it is still the performances that make the movie. In its closing moments the actors are reaching some pretty spectacular heights (Willis aside, I won’t dissent on that widely-held opinion). I maintain that Mr. Glass is up there with some of Jackson’s career-best work, he’s a tragic and complicated figure. Meanwhile, McAvoy somehow one-ups his previous effort in Split by embracing even more of The Horde. In the process he illuminates his internal pain and turmoil in ways we haven’t yet seen.

Despite several blemishes in the script (inept orderlies, anyone?) and the fact Shyamalan reaches for but never quite achieves profundity, Glass ultimately succeeds in bringing closure to a series and a unique set of characters. I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest this is either a swan song or a magnum opus. It’s simply a compelling film chockfull with geeky references to comic book lore and the culture surrounding it, and it is arguably his best effort in nearly two decades.

“Do it! Say osteogenesis imperfecta one more time . . .!”

Moral of the Story: Glass isn’t the event film most comic book adaptations are compelled to become and that alone feels refreshing. Getting to see all three characters share the screen is exciting, with James McAvoy being a true stand-out. The story is absolutely steeped in the language of comic books (becoming super-meta at the end with certain characters observing how reality is merging with events depicted in the comics — a nice touch even if a bit silly), and yet I think there is plenty here to recommend to viewers who aren’t hardcore about collecting and reading comics.

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 129 mins.

Quoted: “This was an origin story the whole time.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com

Split

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Release: Friday, January 20, 2017

[Theater]

Written by: M. Night Shyamalan

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

THIS REVIEW INCLUDES A MAJOR SPOILER

You just have to admire the child inside that M. Night Shyamalan has refused to abandon. His passion hasn’t always translated into quality entertainment but “going through the motions” isn’t a complaint you can lodge against the director. The fire keeps burning, even though the winds of critical and commercial failure keep trying to blow it out.

Amidst a climate of sudden optimism, it would seem Shyamalan has rediscovered his mojo, having delivered two consecutive products that have not become both the joke and the punchline (with last year’s The Visit garnering more positive reviews than his previous three efforts combined). Split, his most recent provocation which concerns three young women abducted by a man with multiple personalities, has people talking excitedly again.

The writer-director wastes precious little time in getting to work, introducing us to the three targets, led by Anya Taylor-Joy‘s moody Casey, before promptly throwing them down the rabbit hole. Her acquaintances, Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) and Marcia (Jessica Sula) — and they are verifiably more acquaintances than friends, based on a few buzzwords we hear in the opening scene, like “mercy invitation,” “obligation” and “weirdo” — are here to offer contrast, particularly in the way the girls respond to threat. Casey stands out as both outcast and survivor, the prototypical Shyamalan protagonist.

Their abductor is played by James McAvoy, whose dramatic chops are put to the test in a performance that requires him to evoke the quirks and mannerisms of at least eight distinct personalities. He plays a mentally ill loner named Kevin Wendell Crumb who suffers from a real disorder called Dissociative Identity Disorder, which has actually rendered 23 different identities in total. They range from obsessive-compulsive disciplinarians to matronly caretakers to naive pre-teens. Given the complexities of such a role, this could be the Scot’s finest hour.

Because it would be unreasonable to expect the actor to portray all of the personalities living inside his character — not to mention confusing for the audience — only a handful of them are paraded in front of the terrified girls who all the while can’t agree on an escape plan. The well-adjusted reason that physical confrontation is inevitable while Casey thinks it’s better to be patient and use Kevin’s condition to their advantage, believing their best chance for survival lies in their ability to manipulate Hedwig, the nine-year-old boy.

Shyamalan ranks among the best in the biz when it comes to generating suspense and making audiences dread what lies around the next corner. Split is more of the same in that regard, but it also has the added bonus of McAvoy’s stunning performance and Taylor-Joy’s nearly-as-impressive portrayal of a troubled teen with a dark secret, one that slowly gets teased out throughout the course of the film. But the thing about Shyamalan is that his childlike enthusiasm for sharing his gift for storytelling often undermines his seriousness of purpose. He is often too clumsy, too ambitious, too obsessed with artifice. Some of his decisions have proven disastrous. Split is not a disaster. In fact, 90% of it manifests as a really interesting psychological thriller that stays well below the usual threshold of silliness.

But that 10% is what is always going to keep Shyamalan a few steps short of greatness. And it is frustrating, because he is quite literally less than a few steps short of delivering his most satisfying psycho-thriller since Unbreakable, now 17 years old. It’s what he does to wrap things up that proves his undoing. Again. The ending is a complete betrayal of the reality in which his new film is based. I’m not concerned about the science that Split manipulates for its own agenda. A) It’s par for the course for fictional works to take dramatic liberties. That’s why it’s called fiction. And B) Kevin’s psychologist (played by Betty Buckley) isn’t the key to unlocking the film’s secrets.

No, that’s why we get Bruce Willis. You have got to be kidding me. I’m now waiting the ultimate plot twist wherein I wake up from all of this madness.

aw-hedwig

2-5Recommendation: When compared to his most recent output, Split feels like a much more accomplished film. And for the most part it does impress, locking the audience inside a pressure cooker from which escape seems highly unlikely. Wonderfully atmospheric and well-performed, the guillotine that Shyamalan runs into at the end is just so regrettable. Two-thirds a return-to-form, in my book. 

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 117 mins.

Quoted: “The broken are the more evolved.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com