When M. Night Shyamalan first started out, the question about his movies was always “Is something different happening than what appears to be happening?” When that became too artistically limiting, the question expanded to include “Is the thing that appears to be happening actually happening, or might it not be happening?” (A helpful pivot point between these two phases: a movie actually called The Happening.) It’s a subtle distinction, but I guess it might be the difference between a twist and a fake out.
Throughout, though, a crucial question seems to have eluded Shyamalan, and continues to do so in his new film Knock at the Cabin: “Whether or not something is happening, and whether or not it’s the thing that appears to be happening, why is it happening?” In his 15th feature as a director – yes, he’s been around that long – Shyamalan has produced yet another “what” that has at least the possibility of being intriguing. It’s the lack of a “why” that continues to hamper him.
Because his movies do contain so many surprises, it’s probably worth dancing around the “what” – even if the trailer does deliver the goods by the end. The setup that’s fair game is that fathers Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) are on holiday in a rustic cabin with their adopted daughter Wen (Kristen Cui). She’s gathering grasshoppers in a glass jar with holes poked in the top when she’s approached by what appears to be a gentle giant, tattoos running up and down his arms. That’s Leonard (Dave Bautista), and he has a natural way with the soon-to-be eight-year-old, even helping her collect the insects. That’s why she talks to him even though she knows she’s not supposed to talk to strangers.
Three other strangers emerge from the woods carrying what appear to be weapons, or possibly tools – they have an agrarian yet deadly quality to them. This is when Wen hightails it back to the cabin where her fathers are on the back porch, unaware of all this. At first they don’t believe her description of the approaching threat, and who can blame them – Cui doesn’t deliver it very well from a performance standpoint. Fortunately, this is really her only weak moment. Shyamalan’s recent clumsiness with actors – partially the line deliveries he directs, partially the bad dialogue he forces them to say – is mostly absent from this film.
Wen’s fathers start to take things seriously when Leonard begins pounding on the door, and when they can see through the window the enhanced farming equipment carried by Redmond (Rupert Grint), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and Adriane (Abby Quinn). The uninvited guests certainly don’t profile like a foursome of your standard home invaders, and once they do get inside the cabin, they’ve got a story the family is scarcely inclined to believe – one that requires a terrible choice they allegedly must make.
Because this film centres on a story to be believed or not, it may be evident that Knock at the Cabin operates more in the space of the second Shyamalan iteration listed above. Either you’d say that the twist is front-loaded, or it isn’t a twist at all because there’s always the tension about whether the family should believe the outlandish story being fed to them. What results is a clunky middle section of the film, where Leonard et al conveniently turn on the news to provide evidence of the truth of what they’re saying, always finding the broadcast at exactly the moment necessary to do so. (And the newscasters apparently unfazed by what they are reporting, in another stilted touch.)
The instant availability of proof is awkward in its own right, but what we see on the news – which contains most of this film’s “Shyamalan moments” – just reminds us that the rest of the narrative is doing too much telling and not enough showing. Shyamalan characters have become excessive explainers lately, which was one of the things that undercut his last film, Old.
Yet like Old, there’s enough here that it invites questions like “What would you do if this situation were happening to you?” Knock at the Cabin introduces enough reasonable doubt between the events happening and the events not happening, though just as often that reasonable doubt leads to questions that the film never properly answers, dabbling in coincidence in ways that are ultimately unsatisfying (but totally on brand for the director). It’s not possible to fully embrace any film from the back nine of Shyamalan’s career because he constantly gets himself in trouble with what you would generously call plot holes.
And one of those is: Why this family? Why indeed. Despite this very pointedly being a gay marriage with an adopted child, Shyamalan never sells the argument that this particular family is uniquely qualified for the responsibility they’ve been given. He gets lost somewhere between admirable goals of representation and actual thematic substance. They only sort of timidly ask “Why us?” We as viewers should ask that question more critically, and should question what it even means to believe this scenario, why that might be important or what it might say about the characters.
In the end – of both the movie, and a review constructed as a series of questions – the final question really is: “Are the ‘Shyamalan moments’ worth it?” The answer is, increasingly less, but still enough to marginally recommend a viewing. Shyamalan’s saving grace has always been a strong visual sense for how to frame a shot. With a few notable exceptions – like the series of shots in which Groff and Aldridge alternate in the background, with one blurry half of Dave Bautista’s bald head dominating the foreground – the look of the film remains a strength, the kind Shyamalan should continue parlaying into more work as long as he wants to keep making films.
And the truth is, we’re likely to keep coming back because we know The Sixth Sense originated in that mind. Shyamalan has more potential in his “what” than most directors out there, and even limp versions of it offer something to savour. One day, maybe he’ll figure out the “why” and will really stick the landing.
Knock at the Cabin is currently playing in cinemas.