When is it time to give up? I asked myself this when I recently saw a preview for the new film “Devil”. The reason why is because when the screen showed the titles “from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan” the entire theater groaned very loudly. It was when I heard these ominous groans that I wondered if a future should exist for the once prominent director. Personally, after watching “The Last Airbender” and seeing the terrible box office gross that ensued I was sure it was the last we would hear of Mr. Shyamalan. Yet when I saw this trailer and learned of a series of films known as the “Night Chronicles” soon to come it feels as though his resignation won’t be when we would all like. So in an effort to help both mine and your understanding, let’s explore how Shyamalan became not only the appealing director he once was but also how he transformed to the box office poison he now is today.
From the very beginning of this young director’s career, it felt as if he was right on the cusp of something truly brilliant. Now, more than a decade has gone by and here we stand right where we started, with something that has yet to be fully realized. No matter what director or artist is being discussed there is one principle that always rings true: to create you must evolve. Perhaps this is a lesson our fateful choice of director should have learned long ago.
M. Night Shyamalan (Born in India as Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan) was raised in the urban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was there that he received a Super-8 camera as a gift and then began making home movies (most of which are special features on his various films). He raised all the funding for his first film “Praying with Anger” which he produced, directed, and starred in all on his own. The film is a story of an alienated Americanized teenager of East Indian heritage that is sent back to India and is partially based on Shymalan’s personal experiences. I recently saw this film while doing research for this article, and found it to be very interesting. The film shows signs of a director who wanted to tell stories we could not only enjoy but relate to as well. I personally can recommend the film and while not perfect, for those who still believe in Shyamalan, it’s definitely a must-see.
His second film “Wide Awake” was actually a film that I saw at a young age and it wasn’t until a second viewing many years later that I became aware of who its director was. The film takes place at a Philadelphia Catholic school and centers around a boy who embarks on a journey to discover God after his grandfather dies. While not completely successful at the box office, Shymalan showed great promise as many consider this to be an underrated film. What makes this film significant in his career is it continues the trend of exploring the spiritual and religious in an interesting, unbiased, and relatable way.
M. Night’s third film which is perhaps his most ambitious, and arguably his most critically successful, would be his his definitive work. The film was “The Sixth Sense”, and much like Shymalan’s role model Steven Spielberg, this third film would be the landmark of his career. Both Speilberg and Shymalan in their third film (Speilberg’s being “Jaws”) engrossed themselves around the idea instituted by Alfred Hitchcock of capturing what’s most fearful… the unknown. The fear coming not from what we see, but from what we don’t see. “The Sixth Sense” again handling a very adult matter through the eyes of a child, with an academy award nominated performance by Haley Joel Osment. Shymalan’s decision to use a child as the film’s main character continued a trend he began with his last film, but with this entry he started another one as well; the twist. At the final moments of “The Sixth Sense” Shymalan not only shocked the audience but at the same time intrigued them enough to expect an ending like this with all of his films.
With his fourth film, “Unbreakable”, Shymalan seemed to almost reinvent himself with what I believe to be his best film to date. The film begins with a train wreck and thus it becomes the center piece for the film’s plot. Without revealing too much, the film slowly unravels to a rich storyline, intriguing performances, and a visual style that still impresses me to this day. As almost a quasi-superhero film for the 21st century, “Unbreakable” is largely ignored by the mass audience but is still revered by most comic and cult-film fans today.
Shymalan wanted something new and yet something familiar with his fifth film “Signs”, and he did just that. Again, the film explores religious themes, provides us with young talented actors in pivotal roles, and of course ends with the Shymalan twist. Instead of using the actor Bruce Willis as the lead character, Shymalan shifted gears a bit and used Mel Gibson. This proved to be a step in the right direction as audiences came out in droves to not only see “the new Mel Gibson film” but also wait for that twist that they had become accustomed to. This film is also somewhat hard to discuss without revealing too much, but Shymalan again took the familiar, as he did with “Unbreakable”, and reinvented it. The plot revolves around the idea of how crop circles are made and makes us wonder if they truly are the mystery they appear to be. The reason this film stands out as one of Shymalan’s best is it again employs what he started out to create, a film not only enjoyable but relatable.
Shymalan was at a crossroads with his sixth film, with so many different ideas and twists, where would he go from here? Shymalan’s answer was “The Village”. Audiences were mixed. While many consider this film much better than it was perceived, I can agree with the mass population and say this movie revealed to us Shymalan’s tell. Instead of an interesting and mysterious plot that the audience would relate to, we were instead subjected to something far worse. The idea of surprising the audience with a twist had obviously overwhelmed Shymalan and it sadly disappointed many. Shymalan had to learn that you can’t revolve an entire film around the principle of a surprise, unfortunately it’s a lesson he’s still trying to learn.
Distraught by what many thought to be the end of his career with words like “wash-up” and “has-been”, Shymalan had to break new ground with his seventh film. Unfortunately, this did not happen and instead we were treated with “Lady in the Water”. What followed was a film that seemed like a potentially good idea that just wasn’t fully realized. Shymalan tried to tell an adult fairy tale in the vein of “Pan’s Labyrinth” but failed miserably and instead produced something that even the Grimm Fairy Tales wouldn’t accept. Shymalan used a new actor in Paul GIamatti and a familiar one with Bryce Dallas Howard but again Shymalan couldn’t figure out a successful formula to make a film like this work.
His next film, due to the recent fall from grace, was a toss up between almost no expectations and talks of a comeback. The film that came out of this was “The Happening”. Now once again, up until writing this article I had not seen this film, frankly because it had been panned by everyone I know. I don’t want to over-analyze this film so I’ll simply say that watching this film was utterly painful. I have never felt an experience quite like this, because this quite possibly was the worst film I have ever seen. The problem being once again that Shymalan was given a large budget, a slew of talented actors, and yet still could not produce due the plot being poorly realized.
M. Night Shymalan’s latest work, “The Last Airbender”, was supposed to once again be a reinvention and had all the possibility to do so. With a storyline based on a popular and well written anime cartoon of the same name, this film would be hard to screw up. Though as we saw with “The Happening” the film was plagued by horrible acting, atrocious dialogue, and special effects that James Cameron created when he was in grade school. I’m not sure what else to say about Shymalan’s films that I haven’t already said because as you may have noticed, they all follow a trend.
This trend is one commonly seen in filmmaking today; that even with all the ambition in the world, all of the money in the world, and even with endless support and resources, a film’s story must take the time to be fully realized. When you are given the keys to the kingdom at such an early stage in your career sometimes it feels like everything afterward is downhill, sadly this has proven to be the case with Shymalan, the only direction he has gone is down. Starting out with such promise, such vision, and such imagination Shymalan has truly squandered away all hope from his audience, and at his own hand. There is no one to blame but Shymalan himself, for he truly had everything a filmmaker could ask for and yet in just a little over a decade, he has created a literal “what not-to-do” guide to filmmaking. The lesson to learn here is that story is important, and no matter what, that story must have time to develop. Much like Shymalan’s films his career was rushed before it began, now it feels like it’s already over.
Without avail, Shyamalan brings us a new film we didn’t ask for. This time it’s called “Devil”, a movie he wrote but did not direct. The problem we have seen in his increasingly depreciating 
work unfortunately has been the writing. To depend on a failing formula and dialogue that simply doesn’t improve is a gamble for sure. The question remains as it has with has last few films; will he redeem himself or fall short yet again? After much deliberation I can say with confidence that I’ve been fooled before and unlike Shyamalan’s poorly written characters I won’t get fooled again.
