Movie Malcontent / THE VILLAGE

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THE VILLAGE / Malcontent's Mark: C

July 30, 2004

Lucius Hunt: Joaquin Phoenix
Ivy Walker: Bryce Dallas Howard
Edward Walker: William Hurt
Noah Percy: Adrien Brody

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
Rated PG-13

After the success of The Sixth Sense, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan discovered a formula that resonated with the audience - take a minimalist story, layer on atmosphere, portent, and gloom, and most importantly, end with a twist. Working from the same Sixth Sense blueprint, Shyamalan milked his signature formula to produce Unbreakable, Signs, and now The Village. However, in each successive film, he’s distilled that formula to the point of parody.

So with The Village, the movie is all set-up – the characters are simply gears in Shyamalan’s grind to a “shocking” climax.

The characters of The Village live in a commune of unspecified time and place – but the clothing and absence of cars and telephones suggest the late 1800s. The village is surrounded by a forest. The town elders all warn of the hostile creatures that live in the woods and explain there has always been a truce between the townsfolk and the monsters. How the elders were able to work out the finer points of this truce with the ravenous beasts is never explained.

Cinematographer Roger Deakins is able to conjure lurking menace in the autumnal countryside with stark photography, dark hues, and swirling mists. The weather never changes in the village – it’s always overcast and chilly. Yet this added the perfect tone and atmosphere to the gloomy proceedings.

Filling the dark corners of Shyamalan’s palette is the stellar cast of William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Joaquin Phoenix and Adrien Brody. Yet despite these talents, Shyamalan seems more concerned with shoveling on the dread and sprinkling clues of a twist ending than filling the narrative with living, breathing characters.

I've noticed Shymalan’s dialogue has regressed since The Sixth Sense, becoming more and more stilted and schematic. In The Village, he has the perfect vehicle for what his dialogue has devolved to: 18th century aphorisms and Puritan histrionics. With lines like, “Heed the warning bell, for they are coming," characters move below one-dimensional. Everyone speaks in the passive voice. All vitality has been drained from these characters

Only Bryce Dallas Howard, the daughter of director Ron Howard, shines beyond the material, giving a breakout performance. Playing blind waif Ivy, she’s radiant with innocence and scrappy tomboy wit. Whenever the audience grows restless of the one-note set-up to the climax – as no doubt many will – they can count the minutes between scenes with Howard.

One must say that Shyamalan remains superb at staging scenes: a stabbing, Ivy reaching out into the darkness with a creature looming in the background, and a midnight conversation between Ivy and Phoenix’s Lucius - when you can’t take your eyes off the swirling mist in the background.

Yet the whole movie is such a sullen affair. Perhaps what's most disappointing of Shyamalan’s films since The Sixth Sense is the gradual draining of humor from his narratives. So much of The Village is pretentious and brooding.

And finally, the movie ends with the twist that we’ve come to expect from Shyamalan…or is it really a twist ending? The director has painted himself into a cinematic corner - audiences expect all of his movies to have a shocking ending. In The Village, there’s a good chance the twist will disappoint rather than surprise.

Perhaps Shyamalan has run out of ways to work his formula. At this point in his career, the biggest surprise would be abandoning his formula and venturing into new territory.

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