Fear Factor
Moving from exploring the meaning of faith to measuring the price of fear, M. Night Shyamalan's The Village feels, in many ways, like a 19th century take on Signs by way of The Twilight Zone. Unlike the earlier movie, The Village fails to deliver on its contrived premise the way Signs did.
The inhabitants of the titular utopian community are being threatened by an all-powerful, unseen group of monsters who live in the nearby woods. The villagers exist under an uneasy truce with the creatures ("Those We Don't Speak Of") that have confined them to their idyllic green valley, prohibiting them both from the woods and from displaying the color red. Despite being essentially prisoners, the villagers, led by Edward Walker (William Hurt), are content, living, loving, and dying while fear lurks just below the surface.
However, this isolation does not sit well with Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix). Upset by the needless death of a young boy in the village, he volunteers to brave the woods and go to the nearby towns to gather medicine and other essential supplies for the good of the village. Refused, he turns his attention to courting Walker's blind daughter Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard). In the meantime, "Those We Don't Speak Of" have become agitated and have begun menacing the village, much to the consternation of the elders, including Lucius' mother Alice (Sigourney Weaver).
The Village is a beautiful, eerie movie to behold, thanks in part to cinematographer Roger Deakins (O Brother, Where Art Thou?). The setting is timeless and appropriately isolated, making the fear under which the villagers live real. The score by James Newton Howard (a Shyamalan collaborator since The Sixth Sense) is understated and evocative. The acting by the ensemble—with the exception of Adrien Brody as the mentally unbalanced Noah Percy—is strong with Howard (daughter of director Ron Howard) giving a standout debut performance.
All the parts are in place, but the movie misfires because Shyamalan's blueprint—his script—tells too small a story to fill up the two hour running time. He spends an endless amount of time detailing the simple life of these stalwart, good people, which does little to explain why they settled in a valley plagued by nearby monsters, why they haven't done anything about it, and what the monsters have against them in the first place. Like all Shyamalan pictures, The Village has several twists, but this time they undercut the entire enterprise and make it more of a cruel, twisted joke than a thoughtful piece of moviemaking.
Though Shyamalan seems to be addressing the price of fear, he skirts around the issue, reducing it to a simple physical act, not a heavy psychological toll. Living in an age of worldwide terror, we have all had a small taste of the weighty burden of fear. The villagers in Shyamalan's world seem to have gotten off pretty easily by comparison.
In the end, other than the beautiful cinematography and Howard's excellent performance, The Village is an overlong and underdeveloped thriller.
The inhabitants of the titular utopian community are being threatened by an all-powerful, unseen group of monsters who live in the nearby woods. The villagers exist under an uneasy truce with the creatures ("Those We Don't Speak Of") that have confined them to their idyllic green valley, prohibiting them both from the woods and from displaying the color red. Despite being essentially prisoners, the villagers, led by Edward Walker (William Hurt), are content, living, loving, and dying while fear lurks just below the surface.
However, this isolation does not sit well with Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix). Upset by the needless death of a young boy in the village, he volunteers to brave the woods and go to the nearby towns to gather medicine and other essential supplies for the good of the village. Refused, he turns his attention to courting Walker's blind daughter Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard). In the meantime, "Those We Don't Speak Of" have become agitated and have begun menacing the village, much to the consternation of the elders, including Lucius' mother Alice (Sigourney Weaver).
The Village is a beautiful, eerie movie to behold, thanks in part to cinematographer Roger Deakins (O Brother, Where Art Thou?). The setting is timeless and appropriately isolated, making the fear under which the villagers live real. The score by James Newton Howard (a Shyamalan collaborator since The Sixth Sense) is understated and evocative. The acting by the ensemble—with the exception of Adrien Brody as the mentally unbalanced Noah Percy—is strong with Howard (daughter of director Ron Howard) giving a standout debut performance.
All the parts are in place, but the movie misfires because Shyamalan's blueprint—his script—tells too small a story to fill up the two hour running time. He spends an endless amount of time detailing the simple life of these stalwart, good people, which does little to explain why they settled in a valley plagued by nearby monsters, why they haven't done anything about it, and what the monsters have against them in the first place. Like all Shyamalan pictures, The Village has several twists, but this time they undercut the entire enterprise and make it more of a cruel, twisted joke than a thoughtful piece of moviemaking.
Though Shyamalan seems to be addressing the price of fear, he skirts around the issue, reducing it to a simple physical act, not a heavy psychological toll. Living in an age of worldwide terror, we have all had a small taste of the weighty burden of fear. The villagers in Shyamalan's world seem to have gotten off pretty easily by comparison.
In the end, other than the beautiful cinematography and Howard's excellent performance, The Village is an overlong and underdeveloped thriller.
