A beautifully filmed, wonderfully acted story

Rating: 8/10 (1 May 2005)

Forget the jaw-dropping last minutes of The Sixth Sense. And don't expect the clever, subtle plot device of Signs. See The Village with an open mind and no expectations.
M. Night Shyamalan's latest film has been, first of all, undermined by a totally misleading trailer and, second, sabotaged by viewers expectations that every film he gives us will have a pull-out-all-the-stops twist ending.
The Village is a beautifully filmed and wonderfully acted story whose message is simple and direct. The ending is not so very hard to guess but you'll have a better time if you don't try and just enjoy a well-told tale. And should you suspect you know where its all going, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't detract from the beauty - and the message - of the film.
(SPOILER FOLLOWS) We carry our humanity with us -- with all its dignity and divinity, all its baseness and flaws -- wherever we go. We cannot wall it out. Within The Village exists love, hate, fear, sickness, death, mental illness, strong emotion and crimes of passion. The "towns" outside of the village contain kindness and compassion even as they also contain tragedy and inhumanity. The Villagers have, in the end, left nothing behind.