Review: 'Knock at the Cabin', the latest by M. Night Shyamalan, I can't see the forest because of the provocation (2023)

At the beginning of Knock at the Cabin, M. Night Shyamalan's final frantic fling with the apocalypse, 8-year-old Wen (Kristen Cui) faces a gentle giant man named Leonard (Dave Bautista). He catches locusts in the forest; He helps her out, deftly catching an insect and sticking it in her jar, being careful not to startle those already trapped inside. It's a clever metaphor for the finely orchestrated home invasion that unfolds at the sea cabin where Wen stays with his parents Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and Eric (Jonathan Groff) for a few less idyllic vacations than theirs. I had anticipated.

Those unsuspecting locusts could also be an indirect nod to Shyamalan himself, given his longstanding penchant for keeping his characters underwaterwas. Time and time again, throughout his unpredictable, sometimes ridiculous, and rarely uninteresting career, he has locked his characters in hermetic puzzle box environments ruled by rules that aren't always revealed until the final scenes. Even in his doomsday thrillers like "Signs" and"The event,"The threat of global annihilation tends to play out in enclosed, self-contained spaces. The fate of the world takes a back seat to the most intimate of struggles for a family's survival.

What's new about The Cabin Knocks, a fast-paced play in the doomsday genre adapted from Paul G. Tremblay's novel The Cabin at World's End, is that it pits the world and family head-on against one another. other. Despite his obviously unfeigned friendliness, Leonard turns out to be the bearer of unfriendly news. Before long, he and three companions, their names are Redmond (Rupert Grint), Adriane (Abby Quinn), and Sabrina (a soulful Nikki Amuka bird), grabbed sharp, scythe-like tools and crowded into the cabin. Amidst the initial shock and confusion, the roar of voices and the inevitability of violence, a cruel ultimatum is delivered: the world will soon end in fire, water and plague, and to save mankind Andrew, Eric and Wen must make the ultimate sacrifice . One of them must die, and it must be the other two who do it.

Such wild demands, even when worded in Leonard's patient and pleading tone—I know how ridiculous that sounds—Andrew, Eric, and Wen can't help but spur their own remarkably sensible and practical questions: Who are they? these crazy ones and not so-funny Gamesare you up to it? Can Andrew break free and grab the gun he has stowed in the car, or are they outnumbered? Are he and Eric being targeted for their identities as gay parents of a Chinese-born adopted daughter? A few carefully placed flashbacks to the early days of their relationship, including a vicious bar raid, created the atmosphere of pervasive, floating homophobia that she and Wen have so far managed to seek refuge from.

But Leonard struggles to reassure Andrew and Eric that their sexuality has nothing to do with why they were "chosen," and at its smartest moments, "Touch the Cabin" almost convinces you that it shares Leonard's indifference. The best thing about the film is undoubtedly the casual portrayal of two gay fathers in a way that feels meaningful yet understated, sensitive yet matter-of-fact. Aldridge and Groff are particularly good at showing the complementary perspectives of a couple - Eric, the instinctive peacemaker, Andrew, the impulsive hothead and fiercely protective - who are clearly stronger because of their personality differences and united by their unwavering love for their son.

We instinctively know who these characters are and hope they survive. Almost exactly the opposite could be said of the invaders, and while the performances flash their warmth and complexity - Bautista, cast here perfectly as a bespectacled, heavily tattooed teddy bear, has rarely influenced more seriously - the end of his beliefs, of course. transports the viewer into a realm of outlandish and unabashedly allegorical speculation.

Often depicted in extreme and disturbing close-up, could these four invaders be the messengers foretold in the book of Revelation? And if so, does that make Andrew, Eric, and Wen a secular Earth version of the Holy Trinity forced to sacrifice one of their own for the salvation of mankind? Two handsome young men and their handsome boy may not resemble anyone's idea of ​​divinity. But the intruders carefully refuse to physically harm Andrew, Eric, and Wen, treating their captives with an eerie, adoring reverence. His fanatical beliefs are easy to mock, but also hard not to take seriously.

The same can be said of Shyamalan's confidence in Tremblay's material, as well as in his own formal persuasion. While there are some mammoth spectacles, visions of falling planes and crashing tidal waves, most of it vaguely filtered through a TV news camera, "Knock at the Cabin" is primarily a captive exercise, one that derives from her claustrophobia. Power of the flowing interplay of Jarin Blaschke and Lowell A. Meyer's meticulously composed panoramic images, Noëmi Preiswerk's taut, flowing editing and Herd's Stefánsdóttir's menacing notes of the score.

Like the director's previous thriller,the adaptation of the graphic novel "Old","Knock at the Cabin" suggests that Shyamalan, a filmmaker once celebrated for his originality, has gotten better at identifying his favorite themes and obsessions in stories other than his own. Despite the surprising left turns he and co-authors Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman incorporated into Tremblay's narrative, it's refreshing to see Shyamalan finding himself and subsuming his ego, at least in part, in someone else's material. It tells a thin, stripped-down tale that feels quite (maybe too) in its B-movie wheelhouse, a tale of the terror of the unknown, the power of suggestion, and the importance of belief.

Faith has always been a big thing for Shyamalan, and like many of his previous films, Knock at the Cabin makes serious nods to higher powers and deeper meanings. That is its fascination and, the further it goes, also its limitation. As the stakes rise and the horrors multiply for Andrew, Eric and Wen, the story seems to contract and retreat into itself; We inhabit less a tense, wired stage and more a meticulously planned sequence of airless movements. What at first seems like an engaging puzzler slowly fades, shedding its layers of implications and mysteries, to become a painfully obvious pseudo-philosophical parlor trick.

The more you realize where Shyamalan is taking us, and it's not exactly a surprising destination at this point, the harder it becomes to find a worthwhile point. Perhaps the point lies in the impressive discipline of filmmaking, although given its premise, the film tends to be a scarier and more uncomfortable piece of work than it manages to be. Terribly violent things happen in "Knock at the Cabin," but Shyamalan rarely gives them the right visceral weight. Even his insistence on framing the goriest moments right behind the camera feels less like a triumph of restraint and more like a lack of nerve.

I say all of this as a longtime Shyamalan agnostic, or perhaps something of an appreciative skeptic. Over the years, through various ups and downs, setbacks and setbacks, his idiosyncratic blend of genius and hacking has become a reliable and unreliable part of the mainstream film landscape: a source of amusement, intentional and not, and the occasional genuine surprise and excitement. It's not difficult to keep cheering for him or his enormously sympathetic trio of leaders, even if the conditions of their increasingly bizarre and brutal endurance test are ultimately hard to believe.