Twisting M. Night away

With a M. Night Shyamalan movie, there has to be a twist, right? That’s too bad, really. This expectation severely handicaps both Shyamalan’s craft and how an audience approaches it (not too mention severely hamstringing any attempt at summarizing the plot in a review). His movies aren’t about allowing the narrative to draw you into his world, but instead standing back from the proceedings and analyzing every moment, alert for some clue as to what the “twist” will be.

Perhaps The Village is his subconscious reaction against this expectation, in that the twist here is so awkward, the set-up so tortured in its flawed internal logic, that it almost seems like a deliberate piss in the face. Or perhaps he’s just out of creative gas, gnawing on the bones of Rod Serling. For this is what The Village comes across as, a wannabe episode of The Twilight Zone, a thin concept padded out to feature length. When one recalls Serling’s classic series, usually it is with fond memories of the great twists at the end of each episode. The problem is that most of those twists were, well, pretty lame—the whole, “They’re actually Adam and Eve!” sort of clichàd sci-fi groaners that are obvious from the opening moments.

Shyamalan fares no better here. Even worse, he flat out cheats, throwing in an early misdirection (which, like everything else, I can’t mention because it would imply the twist). Granted, the man has talent to spare, and if nothing else The Village is compelling in that, even if the big picture is flawed, there are momentary strokes of brilliance. A nod to The Blair Witch Project late in the proceedings gave me a chill I haven’t felt in quite a while, making this at least worth a matinee.