alright, i've seen it!! and it was good. you're right, only the style and the feel is like the sixth sense, though less menacing and more suspenseful/mystery like. and i agree with OG, it tried to force some things, but in the end I got the message and I liked the message. my main problem was with the wavering story-line (Elijah states his theory but then no one believes it and it kind of sits on the fence for the first half of the movie though of course, coming to see the movie and knowing what you're in for you WANT to believe, but the movie itself sits on the fence), and the ending. that stuff with the ending left me with more questions than answers, had to make one up for myself.
my full, "official" review is below ... longish
.
_____
Fragile, but Good - Review of "Unbreakable" (2000)
Written, Directed By: M. Night Shyamalan
Rated: PG-13
Star Quality: 4/5
Shyamalan is on a roll. It's been said his current film projects are intended to be a trilogy, related to each other in some sense yet each standing on their own. We were introduced to this very talented producer, writer, and director, with "The Sixth Sense" which also featured a confused, distant protagonist (Bruce Willis in his doldrums) and a young, highly impressionable boy in the exploration of the dark and uplifting sides of humanity. I must admit I was highly skeptical as I was on my way to see "Unbreakable" but I was not disappointed and in fact am looking forward to the next frame of this fascinating triptych.
The visuals we came to recognize in "The Sixth Sense" are present here, and so are Shyamalan's "color flags." Where in the first, he used red to symbolize the drama in situations throughout the film, in "Unbreakable" he relates a specific color for a specific person - Elijah, (Samuel L. Jackson) a child of the 1970s trapped in a world of his own labelled thoroughly with the color purple. It's a powerful color that lulls white it touches everywhere; heavily subdued its tones are always rich and deep and it stands out subtly against the familiar gray and shadow of the film's cinematography. It represents a fading hope, Elijah's dream of a world that can spawn heroes during today's "mediocre times." His own personal health history has made him a highly fragile human being, and comic books gave him a safe haven; through them he determines the rules of life and has for years been convinced that somewhere out in the world exists his exact opposite -- a man who is unbreakable.
When he meets David (Bruce Willis), a quiet spoken man estranged from his family who has miraculously survived a train accident, he gently and insistently presses his point. Jackson is perfect in this role, as he always is, and expresses the sense of suffering present in this soul who has somehow managed to hold onto hope to the point of obsession. Willis practices his same mild distance, and forever beneath it is the sense that he wants to care, has questions that need answering, seeks and wants to find. He becomes an everyman, a person the audience can understand and relate to. He is faced with life as a dreary tunnel ahead, and the audience sympathizes with his desire to be free. Both his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) and his wife Audrey (Robin Wright Penn) sense his withdrawal and in their way want to help him find his goal and connect with him beyond the emotional divide he has built around himself for years.
When Elijah offers David a promise of the light that will guide him out, to a future where he can connect with his family and wake up in the mornings glad for what he is and what he does, he wavers, but in the end begins to connect the truths of his own past with the frightening and beautiful theory Elijah offers. Shyamalan is on a role because with this story, as with "The Sixth Sense" he finds a deep and quiet beauty, an insistent and ringing chord, in the lives of normal people seeking something larger than themselves. He reveals the subtle complexities of human kind, the fine line between good and bad, questions of sacrifice and morality, all without melodrama and without deliberately milking his audience. It is the richness and beauty of humanity that he reveals and spotlights even as his camera reveals the world in grim tones, cold grays, and smothering shadows. This grimness makes the beauty of connection, of simple gazes, of a quiet touch, of simple emotion without excess, speak louder than any dialogue or flashy montage.
As with "The Sixth Sense" there is a revelation of great power and a complete plot-turn-around at the end that I will not give away, but I will stress that in some sense it will leave you lacking a true resolution. The film as a whole had some flaws in the premise itself which made my ability to suspend disbelief a little tenuous at times, but by the middle of the film that eases off. The ending is where the audience might have the real problem - it confused the issues at hand and in some ways did not answer the very questions raised with this final, moving revelation. Perhaps the director needed to wrap things up and so didn't take them further, and perhaps he tried to make up for that with explanatory onscreen text at the end, but in reality they do not help. The premise of the film was confused (is it based off a true story or not?) by this text at the beginning and the end, and it only complicates the ending further. The viewer will have to create their own resolution, but truthfully this makes the film linger even longer than it might have and perhaps that's what the film was intended to do. It's a beautiful film regardless, and I for one don't mind dwelling on beautiful and moving things I have had the pleasure of seeing.
Reply to Topic
