Shyamalan's Glory Days Are Over

Rating: 5/10 (8 August 2004)

Unlike his previous films, M. Knights Shyamalan's The Village is more Hollywood expectations than decent, original filmmaking. With The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs Shyamalan toyed with strange scenarios, experimental lighting and a powerful sense of honest suspense. In The Village all these elements still exist but they are overshadowed by the weak ending and stiff characterizations that keep you from being completely drawn into the film.
Color has played a big role in Night's films and here it does again. Red is the bad color (The Sixth Sense, anyone?) and it is countered by yellow. The people of the village wear the strange shade of mustard hoping to protect them from whatever it is that they are so afraid of. The red things, I guess. They live in a village that is completely set apart from any time period. Though the tombstone in the beginning says 1800, the grave is surrounded by barbed wire and the presence of plastic is not scarce. These people idealize innocence and perhaps in trying to capture this, the script abandoned plot development for this more free feeling. As the village idiot chases a blind girl through a field, the audience is still trying to figure out how any of this is relevant. It's not until more than half way through the film that there is more going on then burying the `bad color'.
The Village wants to be a film that the actors carry. If the casting had gone better then maybe the whole movie would have been salvaged. But as it is the story is just not strong enough to overcome it's own faults and the poor performances of it's actors. Ron Howard's daughter (Bryce Dallas Howard) plays the blind girl, Ivy. I didn't know she was blind until someone said so. When she speaks to someone, she looks them in the eye, when she walks it's exactly where she wants to go and she's not clumsy in the awkward way she should be. Apparently Ivy has the ability to see people by the specific color they each have. This is so ridiculous it can only be explained by the fact that they had to give her something because she couldn't pull off playing someone who's blind. Oh, a quick side note about Bryce Dallas Howard: It's funny that her hair is red. That should have been a sign not to cast her. Adrien Brody, coming fresh off his Oscar win, gives the best performance of the film. It's not a hard character. He plays the slightly retarded Noah Percy. It's the usual bag of tricks: dopey eyes, laughing, clapping. See Sean Penn in I Am Sam for a better take on this type of person.
There is nothing exciting about The Village. In all fairness, it doesn't deserve the trashing it has received from critics but Shyamalan disappoints here and for him, this kind of let down will hurt twice as hard. I suppose it is true that all thing that go up must come down but Night had a long way to fall and I have to say I hope he hit the bottom. Another Village and Shyamalan could be said as a flash in the pan with The Sixth Sense. Nothing can ever top that and if you can't go up, there's nowhere but down. I suppose The Village was doomed from the day `I see dead people' was penned. **1/2 out of *****