With The Village, Shyamalan continues to paint himself into a corner. People expect the twist, but unfortunately the filmmaker

Authors Avatar

A quality cast that includes William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, and Joaquin Phoenix lead M Night Shyamalan's tale about an isolated rustic community

For M Night Shyamalan's breakthrough,
The Sixth Sense (1999), the twist ending worked well, adding another level to an already decent film. Repeated to good effect in Unbreakable (2000), the surprise ending became the director's signature. But with Signs (2002) it was losing its novelty, or more accurately, it was becoming problematic as there's no way Shyamalan could keep delivering entirely effective twists. Signs had its moments, but the end result was a pompous and ludicrously illogical film. And the twist ploy felt forced.

With
The Village, Shyamalan continues to paint himself into a corner. People expect the twist, but unfortunately the filmmaker seems to have become a slave to it. The Village is a film based more on a pitch than on a fully realised idea and solid storytelling. It's the high concept backfiring.

The fact that Shyamalan seems to be trapped and / or intent upon remaining 'the guy who does twist endings' is an exasperating situation - as in many ways he's a skilled filmmaker, adept with atmosphere and visuals, and able to elicit worthwhile performances from actors. Perhaps he should relinquish some control next time round and allow someone else to write a decent script.

Join now!

The premise here concerns an isolated rural community who live a simple, Amish-style life of farming and horticulture. The idyll is compromised, however, by the fact that the villagers can't venture into the surrounding woods because of "those we don't speak of". Furthermore, the village elders - Hurt's Edward Walker, Weaver's Alice Hunt and Gleeson's August Nicholson - decree that the towns beyond are "wicked places where wicked people live", and most decidedly off limits.

Understandably, some of the younger folk are restless - Noah Percy (Brody) is a mentally disabled boy who laughs at the howls of "those we ...

This is a preview of the whole essay