M. Night Shyamalan Might Be One Of Our Most Important Filmmakers, But He's Far From Our Best
#212: "Knock at the Cabin," "Empire of Light," "Witness," "Long Way Down"
Edition 212:
Hey movie lovers!
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This week: M. Knight Shyamalan has been one of the running characters of this newsletter’s history…in that every few years I beat his movies up a bit. But his new one is pretty good! It’s way better than Empire of Light, the awards flop I finally got around to on streaming. Don’t worry, I redeem that pick with two other streamers you’ll enjoy. And this week’s “Trailer Watch” is a real treat: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are back on screen together again in a new movie I’m very excited about.
Knock At The Cabin
Longtime readers of this newsletter might remember when I called Glass, M. Night Shyamalan’s 2019 crossover sequel to Unbreakable and Split, one of the worst movies I’d ever seen.
In my mind, that was a coup de grace that you never come back from. Then it made $247 million, because of course it did (this was 2019, after all), so in the mind of the industry it was seen as another step on the ladder of Shyamalan’s great comeback. Even Old, which I said should be the nail in the coffin of the guy ever getting the chance to write his own material again, made $90 million in the dregs of 2021.
The consensus is clear — Shyamalan is still one of the very few “brand” filmmakers who can open a movie based on his reputation alone. I don’t say that lightly. This is blasphemous for me to even mention, but one could argue he is more commercially viable right now than even Scorcese (Silence was a critically acclaimed flop and The Irishman went straight to streaming) or Spielberg (West Side Story and The Fabelmans were both commercial disappointments).
The irony, of course, is that 20 years ago Shyamalan appeared on the cover of a magazine dubbing him, “The Next Spielberg.” He was young, confident, and in the midst of one of the best four-movie runs of all time: The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village. In a five year span! Six of his eight movies since have been clunkers, by my judgement. No matter. His new movie, Knock At The Cabin, made as much in its opening week as The Fabelmans in its entire theatrical run. Eat your heart out, Spielberg.
These days, the twist master is aiming his craft at the cheap seats. His latest movies are pure genre thrillers, heavy on the tension and light on the ideas. Like, really light.
This is a movie about the apocalypse, which you know if you’ve seen brilliant trailer (I swear the secret to his recent success is his ability to cut a good trailer). I won’t spoil anything, but the premise is that home invaders tie up a family and force them to make a terrible decision to supposedly save humanity.
Don’t think about it too long. It’s not deep. The story provides Shyamalan with his bread and butter. 1) Simplicity. We understand what the movie is about immediately (Old is about people getting old, Split is about a guy with multiple personalities, etc.), the stakes and morality of the story are totally obvious. 2) Sentimentality. He loves to feature a family, with the primary motivation being saving the children from harm. It’s something we can all easily get onboard with.
Maybe the juvenile nature of it is what turns me off a bit. The story arc seems to be leading toward a certain destination, and then it just goes there. Maybe I still can’t get over his signature “stilted” dialogue — I don’t understand why we give him a pass for making his characters speak as if they’re not human, but apparently we do. Whatever it is, something didn’t quit click for me.
Still, Knock At The Cabin is easily his best effort in the past few years, a reminder once again of his visual mastery. In a confined space, he creates breathtaking moments out of simple camera moves. The difference between frames composed by a visual artist, who is telling the story with his camera rather than just covering the action like 90% of the other junk that gets produced, is obvious. And he wrings tension out of the simplest moments, keeping viewers on the edge of their seat despite basically no mystery and only one location.
On the latter point, Dave Bautista may deserve as much credit as the filmmaker. The former WWE wrester has gone from special effect to legitimate movie star, with far more acting chops than his similarly-sized but much higher-paid colleague, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He was very good for one scene in Bladerunner 2049, blew up in Guardians of the Galaxy, and held his own in Glass Onion. But this movie takes him to a new level for sure, at times carrying the entire weight of the movie on his impossibly broad shoulders, yet doing so not as a big brute but as a sensitive, complicated man.
Going forward, the idea of Shyamalan’s visual brilliance matched with some other sharp writer still makes me want to squeal with excitement. But it’ll never happen. It appears he has another modest success on his hands.
So instead of getting great movies from him, we can expect only Shyamalan movies. Take that how you will.
Something New
Empire of Light (HBO Max): One of the strangest misfires of 2022, it’s really difficult to comprehend how a movie with so much talent in front of and behind the camera put together something so … bad? I feel the need to run down the list. Written and directed by Sam Mendes, Oscar winner; shot by Roger Deakins, 2x Oscar winner and the GOAT cinematographer; music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, 2x Oscar winners and current best movie scorers in the world; edited by Lee Smith, Oscar winner. The cast: Olivia Coleman, Oscar winner (and Meryl Streep successor); Colin Firth, Oscar winner; and Michael Ward, BAFTA winner.
I know people have said I rely too much on “auteur theory” in my evaluations of movies, because movies are not the sole creation of one person. But in this case, it seems pretty obvious Mendes is to blame. This movie is beautifully shot, scored, edited and acted. And it still sucks. Or at least it sucks if you’re one of those fools like me who values story above the rest.
Why? Because of all the interesting things happening in this world of 1980s England, especially the racial and civil unrest that feels very familiar in 2023, he’s chosen his window into the world to be a relatively obscure movie theater on the south coast, and centered the story essentially around the mental health journey of a lonely, aging theater manager. The central relationship pairs a mid-40s Coleman with, apparently, a 19-year-old boy (Ward), which is way weirder than just the cross-racial component. Character motivations don’t line up actions and actions don’t build up toward bigger actions later on, leaving us to wonder what we’re watching and why.
Every list at the beginning of this year had this movie pegged for serious awards contention, but it was a huge swing and a miss both commercially ($5.5 million), critically, awards (only 1 nom for Deakins) and culturally. Throw it on the scrap heap of obscurity. How sad.
Something Old
Witness (1985, Amazon Prime): Why did Peter Weir stop making movies? I had to find out the answer to that question this week when I took a spin through his IMDB and realized he directed Witness, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show AND Master and Commander: Far Side of the World, then while still in his early 50s, basically just retired? He’s directed one movie since 2003. Ethan Hawke said in an interview that Weir retired because he got bored of filmmaking and the ego of certain actors, which in my opinion is just further evidence that he might be the coolest filmmaker on the planet.
This 1985 not-quite-thriller was Weir’s first hit, about a boy who witnesses a mob murder and goes into hiding in an Amish colony, protected by a police detective played by Harrison Ford (at the peak of his charismatic powers). Kelly McGillis gives the best non-Top Gun performance of her career, and familiar faces dot the background — Danny Glover, Patti LuPone, Viggo Mortensen, even Alexander Godunov (the blonde-haired goon from Die Hard!). It’s slower-paced than I remember, but it’s unforgettable nonetheless. Oscar wins for screenplay and editing are well-deserved, and like all great 80s movies the conclusion wraps in a tidy yet immensely satisfying bow.
Peter Weir, make more movies! We need you!
Something to Stream
Long Way Down (Amazon Prime): Four strangers in London meet on a rooftop they all planned to leap off from, and form a sort of gallows friendship. It’s one of those movie premise that’s absurd yet instantly understandable, and compelling, especially when all four are played by recognizable faces: Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul and Imogen Poots.
The push-pull of heavily sentimental writer Jack Thorne and the fatalistic French sensibility of director Pascal Chaumeil make an interesting combination, even if some of the writing can feel a bit uneven because of it. On the whole, it’s a charming, warm-hearted movie attempting to grapple with themes like mental health and cancel culture which feel far more relevant now than when the movie premiered in 2014. This movie is funny in a cute sort of way, and though it isn’t special, I bring it up here because it fits the profile of the type of movie I love to discover and share here — creative premise, good cast, artistically-inclined yet commercially conscious. I’ll recommend these every time I find them.
Trailer Watch: AIR
Oh baby. I’ve been waiting on this trailer to drop for a while. It’s the story of how Sonny Vaccaro signed Michael Jordan for Nike in 1984, and even though Vaccaro looks absolutely nothing like Matt Damon, and Phil Knight nothing like Ben Affleck, how can we complain about Damon and Affleck back on screen together again! With Affleck directing! Supported by Jason Bateman, Marlon Wayans, Chris Messina, Chris Tucker, and Viola Davis!?
April can’t come soon enough. Very ready to fall in love with this movie.