The Village

“The Village,” released in 2004, is a giant inaccuracy, a movie based on a story that cannot support it, a story so see-through it would be laughable were the movie not so deadly serious. Roger Ebert said in his review, “It's a flimsy excuse for a plot, with characters who move below the one-dimensional and enter Flatland. M. Night Shyamalan, the writer-director, has been successful in evoking horror from minimalist stories, as in "Signs," which if you think about it rationally is absurd -- but you get too involved to think rationally.” He is a director of great skill who tells stories out of moods, but this time, sadly, he went way off.

Ebert admitted, “Critics were enjoined after the screening to avoid revealing the plot secrets. That is not because we would spoil the movie for you. It's because if you knew them, you wouldn't want to go. The whole enterprise is a shaggy dog story, and in a way, it is all secrets. I can hardly discuss it at all without being maddingly vague.”

Let us say that it takes place in an unknown time and place, surrounded by a forest that characters never go to. The clothing of the characters and the absence of cars and telephones and everything else suggest either the 1980s or an Amish community. Ebert said, “Everyone speaks as if they had studied "Friendly Persuasion." The chief civic virtues are probity and circumspection. Here is a village that desperately needs an East Village.”

Ebert continued, “The story opens with a funeral attended by all the villagers, followed by a big outdoor meal at long tables groaning with corn on the cob and all the other fixin's.” everyone in the village does everything together, apparently, however it is never very clear what most of their jobs are. Some farming and baking goes on.

The movie is so dull, it’s afraid to raise its voice in its own presence. That makes it boring even during scenes of shameless melodrama. We meet the patriarch Edward Walker, played by William Hurt, who is so careful in everything he sounds, as Ebert puts it, “like a minister addressing the Rotary Club.” His daughter Ivy, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, is blind but spirited. The determined young man, Lucius Hunt, played by Joaquin Phoenix, petitions the elders to let him take a look into the forest. His widowed mother Alice, played by Sigourney Weaver, has feelings for Edward Walker. The village idiot, played by Adrien Brody, Ebert said, “gambols about, and gamboling is not a word that I use lightly.” There is a good and true man, played by Brendan Gleeson. And a bridegroom who is afraid his shirt will get wrinkled.

Surrounding the village is the forest. In the forest live evil, dangerous beings who dress in red and have claws of twigs. They are known as Those We Do Not Speak Of (except when we want to end a description with a preposition). We see Those We Do Not Speak Of only in small signs, like the water-fixated aliens in “Signs.” They look better than the “Signs” aliens, who looked like large extras in long underwear, while Those We Do Not Speak Of look like their costumes were made at summer camp.

Watchtowers guard the border of the village, and flares burn through the night. Not to fear: Those We Do Not Speak Of have arrived at a peace. They stay in the forest and the villagers stay in the village. Lucius wants to go into the forest and requests the elders, who are shocked at this request. Ivy would like to marry Lucius, and tells him so, but he is so deep and sorrowful, it will take him another movie to get enough courage to deal with her. Still, they love each other. The village idiot also has a crush on Ivy, and sometimes they hop together.

Something terrible happens to somebody. Ebert admitted, “I dare not reveal what, and to which, and by whom.” Edward Walker decides unwillingly to send someone to “the towns” to bring back medicine for whoever was injured. Off goes his daughter, Ivy, the blind girl walking through the forest filled with Those We Do Not Speak Of. Ebert noted, “She wears her yellow riding hood, and it takes us a superhuman effort to keep from thinking about Grandmother's House.”

Serious violin hymns fill the sound track. It is autumn, cloudy and chilly. Girls find a red flower and bury it. Everyone speaks in the passive voice. The energy has been taken from the characters. Ebert describes, “these are the Stepford Pilgrims.” The elders have meetings that the younger ones are not allowed. Someone finds something under the floorboards. Wouldn’t you just know it would be there, exactly where it was needed, in order for someone to do something he couldn’t do without it.

Eventually the secret of Those We Do Not Speak Of is revealed. Ebert is right when he says, “To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore.”

Then keep on rewinding the film until we’re back the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward to where we rented the movie and watch the money charged go back to our credit card.

I don’t think I need to give away what the twist ending is, because I think everyone can tell, even if they never saw the film. My brother had told everyone what the twist was to the film, and when I saw it, I couldn’t believe that after my brother had revealed it, I decided to watch this garbage film. I’m sorry, but I don’t see how anyone can like this film. I know people probably predicted early on what the twist was going to be, and I know the reactions range from “I knew it" to “I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS STUPID TWIST!” Just avoid this film at all cost, it is one of the worst Shyamalan movies ever.

Friday, we’re going to talk about a film that brought Shyamalan back to being likable in “M. Night Shyamalan Month.”