Shyamalan continues to impress

Rating: Null/10 (16 September 2002)

Following the heavyweight box-office success of `The Sixth Sense', and the less-successful but equally gripping `Unbreakable', M. Night Shyamalan is rapidly establishing himself as very much the writer/director of choice. Forget about the Steven Spielberg comparisons; Spielberg didn't have this kind of insight this early in his career, and wasn't writing the hits like `Jaws'. Spielberg is a great storyteller, but they aren't necessarily his stories. Moreover, with a few exceptions, Spielberg's `fantasy' work tends to be plagued with over-sentimentalism and comedy. With `Signs', Shyamalan completes a trilogy of work that while not related directly, are certainly linked in his strong grip on the medium of storytelling and also share certain other `Shyamalanisms' between them. (Try saying that one after a few drinks.)
`Signs' is very much a movie that I could completely ruin with a spoiler-heavy review; hence, I'm going to keep this one very brief, and while I will outline the basic premise, I'm going to avoid anything that adds to the resolution of the film or provides any major element of suspense.
In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, an enormous crop circle is found on the farm of Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), who lives on the property with his two children, son Morgan (Rory Culkin) and daughter Bo (Abigail Breslin), and his brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix). Hess is still mourning the passing of his wife, who died six months previously in a horrendous car accident that occurred whilst she was out walking. Pinned to a tree and effectively torn in half, she held on long enough for Hess to listen to her final, gasping words. As a result, Hess, a former preacher, denounced his faith and retired to the farm.
Initially, Hess and his brother perceive the discovery of the first crop circle as a joke. However, as more circles begin to appear around the globe, and then on the farm itself, they, and the world's media, begin to take the events more seriously. Moreover, other strange developments begin to play on Hess's mind: his dogs start to act violently, turning on his own children; both Hess and Morgan notice strange shapes and noises coming from the corn fields; Hess's daughter Bo becomes obsessed with the cleanliness of her drinking water, and begins to leave half-full glasses all over the house; most eerily, a long-abandoned baby monitor starts to pick up creepy, sinister noises. Could they be voices? Could they be alien voices? Morgan discovers a book on extraterrestrial activity in a local bookstore, and begins to quote from it as if it is a modern-day bible. Hess remains sceptical, but as Merrill and his children come to believe, he is slowly turned.
The situation darkens when television coverage reports that (what would appear to be) alien starships have appeared in the skies around the globe; in each case, the ships are within one mile of a crop circle. The ships do not move or present any immediate threat; rather, they just hang in the sky. Moreover, on daybreak, they appear to vanish  or is it some kind of cloaking device?
When the aliens finally play their hand, it is worst than could have been expected. Initially, the media had suggested that the creatures wanted to harvest the planet  then, when the aliens begin to kill people in droves (assisted by a kind of in-built poisonous gas) their motives appear far more sinister. Do they want to harvest us?
Now fearing the worst, Hess and Merrill work tirelessly to seal themselves and the children inside the family home, blocking all doors and windows with wooden barricades.
Throughout this Hess continues to question his faith, his God (who incidentally is never really explained; Hess appears to be Catholic, but he is married.) Over a final meal Hess berates his children for wanting to pray before they eat. When the meal is complete, they retreat down to the basement to await their fate
As a complete movie, `Signs' is not without its flaws; the explanation for Graham Hess's loss of faith is somewhat of a cliché nowadays (i.e., virtually every ex-preacher has either lost a wife or child in Hollywood) and as mentioned the lack of explanation for his religion makes it seem a little false. Furthermore, the discovery of the book is a little too convenient for my liking (one book on extraterrestrials in the whole town and it's pretty much dead-on with its analysis.) Perhaps the hardest part to swallow is watching the movie come so neatly together at the end  yet that is unquestionably the underlying message.
In a premise that was somewhat touched upon by `Final Destination', Shyamalan suggests to us that if we look for the `signs' in life, we can, to a greater or lesser extent, determine our own destinies. (In this way, the director turns the trailers for the film completely upside-down. They very much referred to the `Signs' of the title as the discovery of evidence that pointed to alien invasion. The film concentrates instead on the signs and clues within life. It makes me wonder if this was a clever ploy or total ignorance on the part of the marketing team for `Signs'.) We are also informed of that old chestnut `things happen for a reason', laced with a little `it was like it was almost meant to happy' flavouring. But these particular clichés aren't too tough to swallow; Shyamalan engages us in the story to such an extent that you warm not only to the strong characters but also to the equally firm message. (Although the kids are, as always in these kinds of movies, a bit creepy.)
The acting is very strong throughout the film; Shyamalan's cameo aside (annoying because not only is he a pretty mediocre on-screen performer, but he chose for himself a role that turned out to be somewhat pivotal), the cast are generally excellent, with both Gibson and (Waaa-keeeen) Phoenix excellent. Young Abigail Breslin is very promising, as is Rory Culkin (although I found myself continuously expecting him to start making bizarre faces at the camera, en route to booby-trapping the house and capturing the aliens `Home Alone'-style, much like his older brother did back in 1990. Brace yourself  a fourth `Home Alone' movie is planned for next year, thankfully sans any of the Culkin clan.)
Where the movie scores particularly well is in its subtlety. For a film that is primarily about the threat of alien invasion, this is as much of an antithesis to `Independence Day' as you could possibly imagine. Which is a good thing, and not because `ID' was a bad film  taken at face value, i.e., a popcorn picture, `ID' was splendid  but because it gives us an insight into how the `normal' man would factor such a circumstance. `ID' was mostly about the militaries take on the alien threat, whereas `Signs' looks at the equally real  and undoubtedly more terrifying  perspective of the single-parent family. Hence, it's the little things that Shyamalan brings to our attention that end up owning the movie; Bo's glasses of water, reflections in television screens, strange noises amidst the soft gusts of wind outside. And when the Hess family barricade themselves inside their home, I was very much reminded of a similar scene in Romero's `Night of the Living Dead' (1968), which took a similar viewpoint to a different (but certainly as terrifying) threat.
As I opened, the completed trilogy of Shyamalan's work  `The Sixth Sense', `Unbreakable' and now `Signs'  on a standalone basis is certainly on a par with any other directors effort. (He also has the screenplay of `Stuart Little' to his credit, but let's put that aside, nice family movie that it was.) The films' share certain qualities. In particular, the use of flashbacks to tidy the plot, but also the director's innovative touches with reflection and an ability to turn simple, everyday items and events into complex paradigms and even weapons. Each has had a resounding impact on the movie-going public (perhaps the underrated and generally misunderstood `Unbreakable' aside. Yet even that film begged for serious discussion, whether you enjoyed it or not.)
This reviewer, for one, cannot wait for his next project to begin. `Signs' comes highly recommended.
RATING: 8/10