What a ride...

Rating: Null/10 (25 August 2002)

Whew. That's the first sound out of my mouth at the end of Signs, the newest film from director M. Night Shamaylan, the man behind The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. I expected spooky, creepy, jumpy, and I pretty much got all three, but not exactly in the way I expected, and I suppose that was Shamaylan's intention. We've all seen the ad campaign for this movie, crop circles and what that may portend, but I'm pleased to say that the ad campaign has not given away too much of this movie, and in today's movie marketing, that's a very unusual feat. I'm also very glad that even despite reading a couple of other reviews for this film before going, I don't feel as though anything was given away (well, nothing of significance, anyway).
Mel Gibson, despite not even being visible on the movie's poster, is the star of the show. He's a fallen Episcopalian priest, having lost his faith after the seemingly pointless death of his wife, leaving him alone with his two children and his brother, a failed minor league baseball player, played by Joaquin Phoenix. He awakens one morning in his very empty-feeling house to the sound of his children screaming outside in his cornfields. Rushing outside, he finds some of the crops depressed into an eerie pattern, a `Crop Circle' phenomenon that, as it turns out, is being repeated at various spots all over the globe. What could it mean? Is it some globe-spanning hoax? Are the E.T.'s finally about to invade? Does it all really matter in the end?
This picture has a pace and a mood that is unlike anything any other filmmaker is utilizing these days. Shamaylan is an original, and in my opinion has yet to make a film that belies that label. He can take premises that, on the surface, most moviegoers would write off as lighter fare and treat them with a weight that demands serious consideration on the part of his audience. After all, ghost stories and comic-book super-abilities? Who would pay to see such movies? Somebody sure has, since more than $400 million of combined box office can't be wrong.
Shamaylan's use of comic moments is ingenious, using just enough of them and spacing them out just enough to put us at ease before something else jumps out and goes `boo.' His use of silence is wonderful in conveying anticipation, which is often more frightening that what we end up seeing. The music in the film is sparse, primarily used in transition from one scene to another, leaving the sounds from the cornfields and the bumps in the night and the looks on his actors' faces to convey the tension of each scene. I won't say this movie is Hitchcock-like, because Hitch never delved into the subject matter Shamaylan does routinely, but the effect is similar.

We don't see much of what it is we're supposed to be afraid of in this film, and that's part of what makes this film so effective. With all of the time and emotion these characters have to anticipate what it is they fear, we learn what it is that makes them respond the way they do and what issues they have to resolve. Even when we do see what we're supposed to be dreading so, we don't see it/them all that well as it/they remain/s almost ethereal. There are so many idiosyncratic and seemingly ridiculous plot points that, in the end, all come together in an almost laughable logic that I kicked myself afterwards for not seeing it sooner.
Of course, Shamaylan had help in this wonderful work in the part of his cast. Gibson's tortured Graham Hess is likely his best pure acting job since Braveheart, but in a completely different way. Gibson displays a quiet intensity I don't believe I've seen from him before. This fallen man of God, claiming to have lost his faith, has probably not lost it so much as he just hasn't dealt with being angry with God for the first time. He tells his brother at one point that if the events unfolding around them indicate the end of the world, no higher power will be at hand to help them. Even when his brother tells him that he needs to curse and sound like he means it, Graham finds it difficult, and even is laughable in trying. The two young actors playing Graham's children are wonderful, displaying an off-center emotional state one could believe coming from those six months removed from their mother's death. The director himself even has a small but key role, and his one big scene is very gripping (but I certainly can't tell why).
I wonder how Shamaylan would fare if he were to use his obvious talents in other genres, such as a slapstick comedy or a lush romance or a grand historical epic. He has obviously mastered the spooky, creepy, jump-in-your-seat genre, so why not try something else? But then again, why should he bother? After all, nobody ever asked Hitchcock to do a slapstick comedy, either.