M. Night Shyamalan is back with a new thriller, but is it the comeback we were hoping for?
Yyyyye-maybe? Depends on what you were hoping for.
This isn’t a simple yes or no, so first let me set the scene.
Andrew, Eric, and their adorable adopted daughter Wen are spending their vacation at a remote cabin,
but their peace is disturbed when four armed strangers arrive,
demanding they make an impossible choice to prevent the apocalypse.
Are those strangers a part of a crazy religious cult?
Are they suffering a shared delusion?
Or is the apocalypse actually upon them?
And if it is, how far is the family willing to go to prevent it?
This is a simple, yet great premise with a big question: if you could only choose one,
save your family or save the rest of humanity, what would you do?
There are a lot of ways you can go about a premise like this.
M. Night takes a very straightforward approach: what you see is what you get,
and that’s also how the source material goes for a while because yes,
the movie is based on a novel by Paul Tremblay titled “The Cabin at the End of the World”.
A better title in my opinion. Don’t know why they changed it.
And I also really hope you haven’t seen the second trailer because they show the entire movie,
and that's why I’m going to be very careful with what footage I show in this review.
The first trailer is perfect, the final one is one of the worst trailers I’ve
ever seen because it pretty much makes watching the movie pointless.
But let’s get into all of the pros and cons because there is a lot to talk about,
and I am sure this is going to be yet another movie that some people love
and some people hate, which is pretty much how it almost always works with Shyamalan.
First of all, by far, the strongest aspects of this movie, the three things that make “Knock
at the Cabin” work are the pacing, the tension, and Dave Bautista’s performance.
Even considering the concise, 100-minute runtime, the movie simply flies by.
It’s a very engaging experience, it maintains the tension very well,
and the thriller aspect of it is really effective.
The contained location helps a lot with this because there are very few,
brief scenes that take us somewhere else just to give us a bit of context.
But otherwise the movie is very “here and now”, and that, combined with the premise,
gives it a strong sense of urgency throughout the entire duration.
It gets to the point right away, it doesn’t waste any time,
and you are going to be right there with these characters from beginning to end.
Within the first 20 minutes of the film you pretty much get everything you need to know
going forward, along with a very intense home invasion sequence that lets you know those four
strangers are not messing around, and despite their assurances that they’re not there to hurt
anyone, they’re 100% committed to their mission and they are willing to do whatever it takes.
There’s also a layer of humor to all of this which I thought was really well-placed.
On one hand, it gives the movie a bit of levity, but on the other hand, it’s a bit
of a nervous laughter situation because while something might be funny or awkward,
you never lose sense that everyone is on edge and anyone could snap at any moment.
Now, as far as the performances go, while the entire cast is actually really good
and very fitting for their roles, it’s Dave Bautista’s movie, he’s the MVP.
He plays Leonard, who is the leader of this group of motivated strangers,
and had the filmmakers not nailed this casting - the whole thing would have fallen apart.
There is this “gentle giant” quality to Bautista’s performance that’s crucial
for the character, and he pulls it off so well.
This is also exactly how Leonard is in the novel - he is someone who
looks and seems intimidating, but has an unexpected softness to him.
This is why at the very beginning when he comes up to talk to Wen,
she kind of immediately trusts him despite being told, as any kid is, not to talk to strangers.
And by the way, the young actress who plays Wen is really good as well.
Cinematography on the other hand is where things get a little bit hit or miss.
Don’t get me wrong, most of the film actually looks really good,
and there are some unsettling shots in there that may not be outright
scary per se, but they make you nice and uncomfortable because of what’s happening.
However, there are also some really odd choices that really stood out to me,
particularly the use of close-ups and Dutch angles.
For example, there is an entire conversation very early in the film that happens mostly in Dutch
angle close-ups, and it just feels like the person behind the camera needs to calm down a little bit.
Instead of having a subtle effect of something being off, instead of feeling ominous,
which is what it should have felt like, the entire scene made me wonder why am I
up in these people’s faces for so long, and if they could possibly take a step back?
But by far, the biggest issue I had with this movie was the ending.
And I’m not going to spoil the plot here, do not worry.
Before you say “Well, Marianna, this is M. Night Shyamalan, of course his endings are
going to have a twist that may or may not like” - that is not what I’m talking about, hear me out.
First of all, for the book readers out there, the ending is very different in
the movie compared to the novel and I think that was a mistake.
I say this even though I actually wasn’t a big fan of the novel myself - overall,
I prefer the movie to the book.
But the entire third act starts heading in a different direction
and in my opinion it was a much weaker choice.
You can also really tell when M. Night takes off in his own
direction by the dialogue - suddenly the movie is overexplaining itself.
There is a scene where a character is just there delivering a short monologue,
essentially spoon-feeding the very obvious symbolism to the
audience and it pretty much sounds like “and here’s what happened”.
It’s not just the dialogue itself that is written a lot more awkwardly in the third act,
compared to the first two, but it’s also the fact that the movie is kind of explaining 2 + 2 = 4.
On top of that, the tone with which the ending is framed feels very strange.
That’s all I’m going to say about it because once again,
no spoilers, but we arrive at this ending and the tone is just weird.
The movie also really doesn’t follow through on its themes,
it leaves you with unanswered questions and not in a mysteriously ambiguous way - the
filmmakers just don’t care to address certain things at all.
And that was a bit of a letdown because leading
up to the ending “Knock at the Cabin” is actually really good.
All that being said, the movie works much more than it doesn’t, and as an experience
it’s engaging, it’s tense, and you want to know what happens next the entire time.
M. Night’s movies have always been something I look forward to,
even though I think he’s had more misses than hits.
Regardless of whether you like his films or not, he’s always working with interesting ideas and
every premise sounds promising, which is certainly true for “Knock at the Cabin”.
Would I recommend this movie?
Yes, I would, it’s a solid thriller.
If you’re a fan of the genre and the premise sounds interesting
to you - you’re going to have a great time.
It’s also going to leave you with something to discuss because even though the movie
doesn’t dig that deeply into its thematic potential, the central question of “what
would you do and what would you believe?” remains an interesting one to talk about.
And despite its faults, I am confident that “Knock at the
Cabin” is Shyamalan’s best movie since “Signs”.
Do you like “Signs”? I really like “Signs”.
And that makes it his best work in 20 years.