My Favorite Director's Best Movie

Rating: 10/10 (2 August 2015)

I have no problem admitting that M. Night Shyamalan is my all-time favorite director. Shyamalan is such a master at crafting truly relatable and lovable characters that get you so damn invested and creating worlds both beautiful and haunting. I'll admit that "The Last Airbender" was one of the worst movies of all time and "After Earth" was outright painful to sit through, but everything else he has done has been decent at worst and perfection at best. "The Village" is perhaps his greatest example of true cinematic perfection. It's beautiful, emotional, intelligent, wonderfully shot, wonderfully scored, wonderfully written, wonderfully acted. In my opinion, "The Village" is easily one of the best movies of all time, and without a doubt one of the most criminally and tragically under-appreciated.
Unfortunately, this movie is also one of the worst marketed movies of all time. In case you saw the trailers or TV spots for this film and got the wrong idea, let me give it to you straight; "The Village" is NOT a horror film. Hell, M. Night Shyamalan even went out of his way to CONSTANTLY tell people this film was not a horror movie despite being marketed as such everywhere. While fear is a very important theme in the movie, there are no scares to be found here. "The Village" is a romance story with elements of a psychological thriller, and a beautiful one at that. Bryce Dallas Howard and Joaquin Phoenix simply ooze chemistry, and that really made me all the more invested in what were already truly well written, relatable and likable characters. Their chemistry was just PERFECT. For the sake of spoilers, I can't go TOO in depth, but about 1/2 into the movie something terrible happens to Phoenix's character Lucius Hunt, and you can just feel the horror and pain that Dallas Howard's character Ivy Walker is going through.
As I may have implied, the acting across the board is outstanding. Joaquin Phoenix does a phenomenal job as Lucius Hunt, he is an extremely emotive and impulsive character and Phoenix is able to get a lot of emotional weight into his performance. The criminally underrated William Hurt does a fine turn as Ivy Walker's father Edward. Edward is a good man whose made some VERY questionable decisions for the greater good of the village, and you can really see the pain and regret on Hurt's face.
Of course, the best performance in the movie is without a doubt, no question about it, Bryce Dallas Howard as the blind Ivy Walker. I love everything about her character; she's a wise teacher beyond her years, she's totally and completely selfless and empathetic, she's unbelievably proactive and brave and she has a desperate hunger for the truth as painful as it may be. Dallas Howard's performance was truly the heart and soul of the movie, she is responsible for the film's most emotional moments and is really something of a role model in how she handles some truly tragic and harrowing situations.
This movie looks and sounds amazing. Everything from the sets to the lighting to the editing just carries this incredible beauty to it. It's truly a work of art. Even the musical score maintains that sense of beauty and artistry that's all over this fantastic movie. James Newton Howard's score can be calm, inviting, tense and emotional, sometimes all at once.
The messages and themes of this movie, such as materialism, fear, love and even the well intentioned but flawed nature of Communism, are also explored in really deep, subtle and meaningful ways. The real antagonist in this movie is fear; Edward Hunt's fear of the corruption and possible death of his family and friends, Noah Percy's fear of losing Ivy, Lucius's fear of commitment. Fear clouds the judgment of many of the film's characters, causing them to make some really questionable decisions. But for most of the characters, it is their love that allows them to navigate their way out of the fog and mist of fear and paranoia; Ivy's love for Lucius, Edward's love for his family, e.t.c.
"The Village" is a masterpiece and a true diamond in the rough. I can't find a single thing wrong with it, and I love it more and more each time I watch it.