The story of Indian-American director M Night
Shyamalan is one of amazement and disappointment. The guy was called the
next Spileberg 14 years ago, but things were not meant to be. To understand his career progress, let’s
take a cricketing analogy.
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| Probably Not |
So, there was this
upcoming batsman who was highly talented. He was given a chance by selectors in
an international match. And he hit 30 ball 100 in first match itself. All the
balls went for either a six or a four. He
was on top of the world and got an opportunity in Test match. He was coached by
international coaches. Some tried to straighten his footwork, some tried to
change his grip. He again scored century in test debut, although not as
flamboyant, but was soon called next Sachin. But then in next match he scored just 50, a small bump several thought. His scores in next few matches were 30, 20,
10 and 5. The selectors gave him one last match to prove his mettle, against
Kenya. He scored 0. The guy who would hit six every other ball was not able to take
single! People made fun of him. Called him next Vinod Kambli. He was not even
selected for Ranji team. He went back to his roots. Left aside all that he
learnt during international stint and practiced hard on his in-born talent.
After toiling for months, he gets selected for his city team in a local match. He comes into bat late
in the innings. He has gained some old confidence. He has gone back to his old
style of footwork and grip. He is little worried that if he fails here he won’t get chance to play even for his society.
The first ball he
faces, he hits six. He gets his mojo back.
The Visit (2015) is that six
for M Night Shyamalan. We don't know if he will go on to hit another century but this is a fine return. It is not the best horror movie out there. But it is a
brilliant effort from a director who has been made fun of, who had been ousted
from Hollywood. The story of the movie itself is pretty simple. A single mother
sends her two children to her parents’ house to spend a week with them. And as
can be anyone’s guess, not all is well at grandparent’s house!
Shot in found footage
format, this was not in Shyamalan’s alley but he holds well. The performance of
two kids, a sister aged 15 and brother aged 13 is commendable. The sister,
Becca, played by Olivia de Jonge, is an aspiring director and brings the sense
to make this movie in found-footage format. She also brings some incredible
skills and emotion to the movie. The emotion doesn’t always touch the cord but
by the end you really want the kids to be safe. The brother, Tyler, played by
Ed Oxenbould, provides comic relief, sometimes at the expense of a real scare.
He likes to rap and uses the name of female singers in place of curse words.
The comic timings could have been handled well. Shyamalan is still to learn the
use of humor well. But the real winners are two grandparents, Nana and Pop Pop
played by Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie. They play the weird, scary old
couple to the tee. The movie starts out as horror movie and turns into thriller
in the third act. Although they could have made the third act little longer,
but at 90 minutes, movie is crisp and provides what it set out to do. The final
Shyamalan twist is not of The Sixth Sense kind but it instantly jolts you. You make
all the connection and immediately set yourself for the thrilling final act. It has some preachy elements where people overcome their fears of things they hate in symbolism and the need to express anger. But these does not resonates as well as director want it to.
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| Becca and Nana |
All in all, on its
own, the movie just holds up good. But this is an important movie for what it
achieves outside of box office, reviews and story. It is a comeback of M Night
Shyamalan.
All the Shyamalan
movies are famous or infamous for their twisted endings. The first big movie of
M Night Shyamalan, The Sixth Sense (1999), is amongst the most epic suspense
thriller. The final reveal of that movie has inspired several movie-makers
since its release but none of them got it as brilliantly as Shyamalan did. Starring Bruce Willis, that movie is a quintessential one for a movie buff and Hitchcock lovers. The
next one, Unbreakable (2000), was a superhero movie before the bombardment of
superhero movies by DC and Marvel. But it was a superhero movie of another
kind, where the hero does not fly or shoots web or drives batmobile, but still
saves people. It was the most grounded superhero movie. It has since gained
cult following due to it’s such a different arc. Both the movies starred Bruce
Willis in main role.
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| Century on the debut |
His third big movie,
Signs (2002) was the first one that I had watched. It was an impressive movie
for me at that time. Although I didn’t like the ending and later found that no
one else did. At that time no one had doubted the talent of M Night Shyamalan to
churn out one suspense thriller after another. The biggest of the producers
were readily agreed to pour in as much money as required by Shyamalan to take
his movie to grander scale. He was called the next Spielberg by Newsweek. His writing was crisp and all original, a rarity in an industry full of remakes and sequels. He could never go wrong, everyone thought. But
boy they were wrong!
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| The big fall |
What followed were
some of the most criticized movies and biggest Hollywood duds like The Village
(2004), Lady in the Water (2006), The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender
(2010) and it all culminated in After-Earth (2013). In After-Earth, he had
probably the biggest Hollywood star of the time, Will Smith and his son playing
father-son duo on screen. There was nothing that could go wrong. But still, it
flopped and it flopped badly. The Hollywood closed its door on him. That’s when
he went on to make The Visit (2015). Considering that his last two movies were
made on budget of $130Mn and $150Mn, the modest budget of The Visit at $5Mn tells you
all about producers there is to know. It was not that he lost money for
producers. The Last Airbender earned $320Mn and After-Earth made $244Mn internationally.
It was just that the movies were panned universally.
By the time
After-Earth was to be released, the producers made sure that Shyamalan’s name
does not get highlighted on posters. At one point, he wanted to make Life of
Pi, but didn’t do it because he believed that if his name was attached to the
movie with twist ending, people won’t come to watch it and that would be unfair
to the beautiful story that it is. Such was his lost confidence.
The Visit was the
welcome relief for Shyamalan. The place where he wanted to be. There were
rumors that After-Earth was pseudo directed by Will Smith. It may have made
Shyamalan lose confidence in himself. Therefore it was necessary that he
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| Split (2017) |
goes
to his roots and make this movie at such a small scale. He has now again roped
in a big Hollywood name in James McAvoy for next movie Split (2017), where McAvoy plays a guy with 23 different personalities. The
trailer looks good, but it has always looked good for Shyamalan movie! It is
important for Hollywood that Shyamalan succeeds for what he can bring to table
is something of Hitchcockian level and Hollywood is in dearth of good original
movies. In a world of sequels, prequels, spinoffs and remakes, Shyamalan may well prove to be a breath of fresh air.
The Visit is one
horror/thriller movie that I have liked in a long while. It has shown us that
he has still got his powers. Split will tell us whether he still knows how to
use them, whether he should be playing just in the local city tournaments or is it in
him to play international ones once again.
Here is the trailer of Split:
