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| "Comic. Do you speak it?!" |
After such a auspicious introduction, the
name M. Night Shyamalan inspired awe and excitement in moviegoers for years
after. Nowadays, it’s almost captivatingly sad to see how the career of M.
Night Shyamalan has gone from being one of promise (Roger Ebert referred to his
film Signs as “the work of a born filmmaker”), to one of endless
ridicule and copious Razzie nominations. Shyamalan, by the work of his own
hands, has become one of the biggest punchlines in movies.
Even Nicolas Cage has had a Bad
Lieutenant since his career starting gargling toilet water—there’s
occasional fresh glimpses of the greatness that we all remember. With
Shyamalan, the downturn began with Lady in the Water, which has to be
the single most egomaniacally fueled piece of filmmaking most of us have ever
seen. You remember that one, right? The one where Shyamalan cast himself in the
part of a writer who’s told by Bryce Dallas Howard that his writing will
“change the world”? Oh, did I mention that the entire film was based off a
bedtime story he told his kids?
There’s going back to the well, and
there’s dumpster-diving for scraps.
Follow that up with The Crappening—er,
I’m sorry, The Happening—and you arrive at a time when just the text of
Shyamalan’s name on the screen during previews for Devil sparked
uncontrolled groaning, laughter, and boos from audiences. His most recent space
wreck, After Birth—After Earth, dammit, why do I keep doing that?—brings
it all full circle by omitting his name from the trailers completely. This is
where we are now.
It’s simply because this is where we are
now that it’s important to remember Unbreakable. Unfairly dismissed by
many fans of The Sixth Sense who were expecting more of the same,
Shyamalan’s second film starring Bruce Willis completely shifts gears. In the
same year that saw the rebirth of the conventional comic book film with Bryan
Singer’s X-Men, Unbreakable’s heroic origin story was a quiet,
introspective, totally different breed of animal, and it’s only become clearer
over the years that this is Shyamalan’s magnum opus.
The film begins with David Dunn, played
by Bruce Willis, on board a train destined for disaster. It derails and kills
every single passenger, except him. He not only survives from the wreck, but is
completely unharmed. He doesn’t have a single scratch on him. Sporting the biggest
case of survivor’s guilt since Noah, he finds a note stuck under his windshield
wiper that begins a long-awaited change to an otherwise mundane and
unsatisfying life. It reads simply: “How many days of your life have you been
sick?”
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| "See this look? It's the only one I own." |
He can’t remember ever being sick. When
he asks his wife, Audrey (a terrific Robin Wright-Penn), she honestly can’t
remember either. Enter Samuel L. Jackson as an eccentric art gallery owner with
an obsession for comic book folklore and a penchant for the dramatic. Jackson believes
that comic books represent a form of history that someone must have felt or
experienced. The idea of a man flying around in tights and saving damsels in
distress may sound ridiculous in any practical sense, but perhaps it is nothing
more than “an exaggeration of the truth.” The prospect of his father being
something more than a security guard for minor league football arouses the
interests of David’s son, Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark), and his need for this
to be real affects him in a deeply profound way. Like any child who sees
trouble in his parents’ marriage, his world is already on shaky ground.
This gives us a unique hook to draw us in
and help us connect with ordinary people on the precipice of something
remarkable. Shyamalan doesn’t give us the normal money shots you would expect
from a “superhero film”. What he does show us are intoxicating scenes of
intrigue, dialogue between compelling characters, and intersperses that with
slices of life and humor that feel organic to the situation, not inserted for
timing. All of this is done with such flawless pacing and exquisite attention
to detail that it truly is painful to realize that all of these masterfully
executed elements… are now completely absent from any new M. Night Shyamalan
film.
As time marches on, the moviegoers of the
future are more apt to know about—and quickly dismiss— “the hack who made The
Last Airbender,” than they are to seek out “the Academy Award-nominated
director of The Sixth Sense.” And that’s a damn shame, because the guy who
made Unbreakable could direct circles around most any guy out there
today; the douche who made After Earth couldn’t unlock the door to movie
magic if you gave him a skeleton key and a $140 million budget.
There was real talent here. What
happened? Moments in Unbreakable approach and even succeed in achieving
perfection. Notice the impeccable framing in the scene at the hospital when
Bruce Willis wakes up after the train wreck. The long takes and perspectives
composed to keep us as grounded in reality as possible. The moody and stunning
cinematography by Eduardo Serra. James Newton Howard’s singularly epic and
extraordinary score. And of course, there’s the screenplay and direction of M.
Night Shyamalan, a filmmaker whose vision was still uncompromised by success;
his only ambition was to make the film he wanted to make. I prefer to remember
him this way.
—Blake O. Kleiner
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