 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||||||
| Signs 9 of 10 |
||||||
| Directed by M. Night Shyamalan Cinematography by Tak Fujimoto Mel Gibson Joaquin Phoenix Rory Culkin Abigail Breslin Cherry Jones M. Night Shyamalan |
||||||
| Baby monitors are not scary. They simply aren't. And only an idiot would think that they are. Only an idiot�or a genius. And I'm pretty sure I know which of those two things describes M. Night Shyamalan. Every single one of his films is brilliant. And this is certainly no exception. M. Night set out to prove to Hollywood that it is much scarier to leave things to the imagination than it is to show them; and he succeeded spectacularly. The film is tense from the get-go, filled with jump scenes and unexpected revelations, and builds to an incredible climax. (I would like to mention here that James Newton Howard's score may add more to this movie than any score to any movie since The Mission. It is wonderful.) The performances are also amazing. M. Night is able to get more out of children actors than any director I can remember, with the possible exception of Spielberg. Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin are real kids; they act and sound exactly like kids, which is very rare in films. But the adults are the real stars here. Gibson's Graham Hess is a wonderfully complex portrayal of faith, doubt, sorrow, and fear. Shyamalan himself has a fine (if somewhat strange) turn as the veterinarian Ray Reddy. And Phoenix is the perfect compliment to Gibson. Which reminds me of another interesting thing about this film. It's funny, at times outrageously so. But M. Night never allows you to lose sight of the scariness, either. In fact, he uses the humor to relieve the tension for just a moment, before ratcheting things back up again. The effect is to make you even more tense. Brilliantly done. But I still haven't gotten to my favorite thing about the film. And that's the fact that the aliens are unimportant. You spend the entire time worrying about them, and then you realize that they simply don't matter, and that the movie isn't about them anyway. It's about faith, like so many of M. Night's films. Once again, it's a film with twist ending, but only because you suddenly realize that you were looking at the wrong things. And I really, really like that. "I worked so long that night. I've never fallen asleep driving before. And never since. Most of the ride, there wasn't a car in sight in either direction. If I'd fallen asleep then, I'd have a ended up in a ditch with a head ache. It had to happen at that right moment. That certain ten-fifteen seconds when I passed her walking. It's like it was meant to be." |
||||||