I finally, in the past week or so, have caved to the idea of Netflix. In part, this is because I’ve been hearing from people around me for about two years now that it’s the best thing since sliced bread. In part, it’s because I actually took the time to look into it, and two things sold me on it: the idea of making a queue of the movies you want to see, so that unlike when you’re browsing the video store, you can remember from time to time what you want to see; and, in addition to sending dvds through the mail, Netflix allows you to watch some of their movies online. I chose a plan that allows me to watch unlimited online content, and receive unlimited dvds per month, but only one at a time—all for $9/month. While I’ve got the first dvd from them ready for me to watch (Stay, with Ewan McGregor), I took advantage, last night, of the ability to watch movies online.
I watched M. Night Shyamalan’s 2000 effort, Unbreakable, with Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, and Robin Wright Penn.
For the most part, I find that I like Shyamalan’s work. The fact that he writes, directs, and produces his films (along with oftentimes making a cameo as an actor, á là Alfred Hitchcock), says a lot about his abilities, particularly when it seems that the dialogue is smart, the cinematography is innovative and beautiful, and the actors (beyond their own talents) are well-coached in putting the message on the screen.
Unbreakable is the fourth Shyamalan movie I’ve seen. I said “for the most part” before because I did not like Signs all that much; to be fair to Shyamalan, though, I think that’s as much because of Mel Gibson as because of the film itself.
I was wary of The Sixth Sense when it first came out. In part because I wasn’t sure that Bruce Willis had the range as an actor to pull that one off (I was wrong, and now I can’t believe I ever thought that about him). One of the things I like about Shyamalan’s films is his constant sense of creepiness about them; once you’ve seen enough of them, you know that that they walk the near edge of creepy throughout because, in some way, “things are not what they seem.”
Of course, at times, the thing that is not what it seems utterly fails to sneak up. The Sixth Sense was like this: I saw the “twist” coming. I’m not alone in this—it seems that most people who watched the movie did. I’ve said I didn’t like Signs, and I must not have been paying much attention, because I can’t remember it enough to say whether it had a twist (I’d bet it did) and whether I foresaw it.
The Village, however, caught me off-guard. In part because, after my disappointment with Signs, I was was caught up in Joaquin Phoenix’s performance under Shyamalan’s direction without Gibson’s dead weight pulling him down. But mostly, I was surprised because the twist in The Village was just so shocking, yet made such perfect sense, upon consideration.
Unbreakable gave me a little bit of pause in terms of its plot twist at the end, and, after thinking a little more about it, I have to say that it’s well done. You see, I saw it coming—I understood the nature of the twist that was about to happen, but I was not prepared for its extent. And I won’t ruin it more than that; I’ll only tell you that, yes, it’s what you think—but more so.
Bruce Willis is at the top of his game as David Dunn, a college security guard, who’s marriage to his wife Audrey, played by Robin Wright Penn, is on the rocks throughout the film. David Dunn is the sole survivor of a train derailment between New York and Philadelphia, and discovers throughout the film, with the help of comic book aficionado and art dealer Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), that he is “unbreakable”—a person who has the opposite genetic anomaly from Price, whose bones are extremely brittle; while living in the world, day-to-day, is dangerous for Price, Dunn has walked away from a near-fatal car crash and a fatal train wreck without a scratch—and he has never been sick a day in his life.
Dunn is not Superman, of course. I cannot imagine Shyamalan going in for that sort of thing (D+ aliens in Signs notwithstanding), but we discover, as Dunn does, that the superhero archetype, on which all of our comic book heroes are based, may well have some basis in reality; the average man—shaky marriage, strained relationship with his preteen son, run-of-the-mill job, and all—who’s, for all that, just a little bit different from the rest of us. Who might, therefore, be able to help others in a slightly unusual way.
Unbreakable skirts the edge of creepy, like most of Shyamalan’s work, but it doesn’t cross that line. For all of David Dunn’s difference, he lives in our world. And, except in one relatively minor particular, he is, as he insists throughout the film, a normal man. Too normal, too recognizably normal, except in that one way. I came away from Unbreakable, then, saying what I think we’re meant to say at the end of all of Shyamalan’s films: “Who’s to say…?”
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