A Masterpiece (MASSIVE SPOILERS)

Rating: 10/10 (28 August 2002)

(Warning: There are SPOILERS ahead)
"Signs" underscores the blatant hypocrisy of critics of summer movies. They complain that summer blockbusters use noise and explosions in lieu of plot and are rarely thoughtful. "Signs" is an extremely thoughtful summer blockbuster, and one that relies on mood and indirection, the way Spielberg built "Jaws", or they way Hitchcock constructed his suspense movies. The problem? Well, the thoughtfulness of "Signs" takes a different direction than critics like.
Father Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) is having a crisis of faith after the accidental death of his wife. He's living on a farm in Pennsylvania with his children, as if hiding from the world and the eye of God. He's angry at God, and won't even allow prayer in his house. A set-up shot shows a spot on the wall where a cross or crucifix once hung. Because of his crisis he's run away from his congregation and hidden himself away from humanity, with whom he either feels or wants to feel no connection. His brother (Joaquin Phoenix) also lives with him.
Bizarre things begin happening on the Hess farm. Crop circles. The family dog attacks the children. Odd persons are seen indistinctly in the darkness outside. At first he thinks he's the victim of hoaxers and vandals. Slowly, and with some hair-raising scenes, Father Hess grows aware of the possibility of an alien invasion of earth -- and one of the signs seems to be in his own cornfield. But are the aliens (if there are aliens) vegetarians come to be friends; or have they come to destroy, and enslave humanity? The movie takes the latter course, and after one of the best gradual set-ups in movie history (or at least since the death of Hitchcock) the Hess family finds themselves locked in a cellar with really mean aliens running through the house and trying to get in to do them some harm. These aren't your wussy Spielberg phone-homers. These are the the sort who are probably kin to the aliens that burst out of John Hurt's chest.
Despite the excellence of the movie's unfolding, many viewers have fundamental misunderstandings of the way the movie works. The movie is the story of a man's crisis of faith set during the time of an alien invasion of the earth. Most critics (professional and amateur) seem to think Father Graham Hess has _lost_ his faith. In fact, he hasn't. This is clarified later, when his son seems ready to die of an asthmatic seizure. It's clear at that point that Father Hess has never lost his belief in God's existence, but he has lost his sense that God is beneficent, and he certainly doesn't like the way God sometime works (all believers have this problem, quick to ask God where God was in bad times but rarely acknowledging his presence during fat times). All believers in any religious, philosophical, social or political doctrine) should at some point reconsider the very foundations of their belief: do they hold a social, scientific, political, or religious hypothesis because that's how they were broght up? Have they let others (parents, peers, teachers) impose beliefs on them? Did they have individual enlightenment? Do they really understand what they believe in any of the above contexts?
Father Graham was having a crisis of faith, which every believer in anything should have if he's a healthy thinker; he hasn't lost a belief in God, but he has had the foundations of what he thought God was undermined. This is a healthy thing in Christianity or Judaism, since in these traditions one accepts God for what God is, rather than attempting to impose one's own personality on the Creator.
As for the vapid criticisms that a man's faith in "traditional" faiths should be undermined by extraterrestrials, the argument is extraordinarily shallow and shows a lack of understanding, certainly of Bible based faith, Jewish or Christian, and not only in their theology but their history. In fact, there has been long and fascinating debate a long time about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. There are many strands of Christian thought dating even from the middle ages (and no, no one ever was burned for suggesting such a thing, it's not a heresy). The strand of thought most intriguing to me suggests that God alone is unique and Satan is not; therefore the drama of fall and redemption happens throughout the universe. If one reads the Bible it says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth . . ." That humble sentence covers hundreds of thousands of years in the age of the universe. But the Bible is a book about God's realtionship to intelligent carbon-based life forms on the planet Earth, and the second sentence focuses on the Earth. There are suggestions through Scripture that there are other worlds, but until the time of Canon Copernicus it was little understood what forms these worlds might take. But it was never a part of Christian doctrine that man was unique -- or alone -- in the universe (though he may yet prove to be).
The ending is invariably misunderstood, and is set up by an earlier scene involving Father Hess' brother.
It's not clear what happened to the alien invaders at the end. Did they have a strategic withdrawal? Will they be back? Possibly. This is the purpose of the last scene: Just as in an earlier scene Father Hess' brother went into an army recruiting station, probably toying with the idea of enlisting in case the earth was under attack, so Father Hess has enlisted to fight the invaders the best way he knows how. Some people go into war to fight to defend their country (or planet) but others have to clean up: medics, preachers and priests, and people just to carry stretchers or wash up. Father Hess has re-enlisted in God's service to give spiritual aid and comfort while his brother may enlist in the armed forces to fight the earth's enemy physically. Even if the aliens don't return, it is clear there is much misery, death, and broken-heartedness among the survivors, and Father Hess, having been through his own crisis, is well equipped to help people understand their own loss; he's as much a healer, at the end, as a doctor, and as much a fighter as his brother may be as a soldier. Others will be better for his suffering and doubt.
Anyone hoping for a trick ending is disappointed (as Father Hess tried to impose himself on God, so too many critics and viewers have tried to impose themselves on the movie, refusing to accept it as it was and therefore rejecting it out of hand), but anyone who has given the movie thought will understand why the ending is perfect, and why the movie is therefore a masterpiece: Father Hess has not out of the blue regained lost faith; he's come to better understand a God he never doubted, and because of the uncertainty of the alien situation, he has to serve both God and his fellow men the best way he knows how. He's lost the love of his life (his wife) but he has too much love to give, both for God and mankind, to hide himself in a cornfield when people need him. It's a courageous ending, a thoughtful ending, well set up, and most professional critics hate it because they hate Christianity and the fact that it is portrayed in a not unpleasant light. But anti-Christians can take heart: there is only one scene of unmitigated theological discussion, and it undercuts the idea of comfort in religion alone. If you're hiding in your own "cornfield" from the possibilty of a God, so much that you can't even bear the mention of one in a pluralistic society but must see them silenced, you won't be offended. The movie is anything but preachy: I don't recall the name of Christ actually mentioned, though it may have been; and it certainly has no such heavy preachy theological mumbo-jumbo as we get in George Lucas' movies about "The Force".
Ultimately, the movie does consider free will vs predestination. Which gets the upper hand? Both. While the movie is full of unexplained and unexplainable little oddities that gradually converge, Father Hess himself must tie the (seeming) coincidences together. God gives "signs", but Hess must pick up on them. And this, too, is sound theology. It's not the signs themselves, though, that ultimately lead to Father Hess' conversion to God (he reminds me of John Wesley, who was a fairly poor preacher for many years before he actually had a conversion and a sense of the reality of the Redemptive power of Jesus Christ).
The movie, while thoughtful and largely quiet (not full of explosions), contains many scenes of suspese that will become classic: the Hesses climbing up on the family car to pick up "alien" signals on a baby monitor, for instance; nd the momentarily glimpse of a green leg disappearing in the corn (and it ain't the jolly green giant). The suspense is relieved by moments of comedy, most involving Phoenix but also in the David Lynchean parade of local townspeople.