Fantastic, Subtle, Riveting

Rating: 10/10 (3 August 2002)

First of all Mr. Shyamalan, I am much too old, mature and jaded a movie-goer to be on the edge of my seat for 90 minutes. How dare you craft a piece of cinema so compelling, in this day and age when we have seen it ALL. How dare you subtlety tone your movie so it's emotional impact is thunderous? How dare you craft a film with real emotional resonance that doesn't use gushing music to cover it's hollowness? How DARE you defy the special effects gurus and show LESS and end up affecting the viewer MORE? How dare you employ the talents of the overlooked Tak Fujimoto as your DP and blow us away with beautiful visuals of relatively mundane things? I DON'T GET SCARED AT MOVIES. THIS MOVIE SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ME. If you haven't seen this movie, go get in line, and buy a ticket. It's worth every penny. !!!
MAJOR SPOILERS!!!
One of the best things about this movie is the way it shows how events affect and reverberate within a family. Parents: It shows how children ARE watching your every move. They understand and absorb far more than you tell them, AND when you wish to keep something hidden, their little antennea extend that much further. This is all under the surface however, as Shyamalan bucks movie conventions by NOT hammering us over the head with his message. He's to smart for that and he doesn't insult our intelligence as an audience.
Let's get this out of the way. This movie has an alien invasion in it. The film may even borrow from "War of the Worlds" or others of the genre. But the similarities end in the pitch. Rather, it's about a man's loss of faith, of hope. Ultimately it's about the pressure that loss has on his family. It's about the redemption that is only a leap of faith away for the most hardened atheist. Actually, that isn't strictly true. It's the relationship between a father (God) and his estranged son (Man).
M. Night could have slacked off and made a candy coated version. Most directors faced with profit concerns and annoying producers would have had to. He is far too serious an artist to do that. Let's face it...he makes his movies on one level for the many to enjoy and then he makes them on another level for smart people. He creates a tone and stays with it throughout the film. His subtlety isn't reminiscent of early Spielberg (as some have alluded) but more like Hitchcock. The title music could have been written by Lalo Schifrin. I haven't felt such an emotional connection with a main character since "Vertigo". Far too many films are made where one cares little about the fate of the characters, primarily because the characters fit some cookie-cutter role designed for "stars". The realistic use of humor in strange situations threw some reviewers for a loop. Perhaps they are more comfortable with a "tongue-in cheek" Tommy Lee Jones one-liner during a completely unbelievable conflict with aliens in "MIB". That's unfortunate. The humor in this film is the humor of everyday life, the peculiar and amusing incongruencies of people and human interaction.

Just see the movie. But please don't talk or put your feet on the seats, because that guy in front of you is me seeing the film again.