Gemma

Though M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense still ranks as a most unexpected blockbuster—the first horror-themed film to garner an Oscar nomination since The Silence Of The Lambs—no audience has been completely happy with any of his films thus far. Reflexive backlash against hype did for a certain portion of The Sixth Sense's consumers, while one form or another of sequelitis (the frustration over it not simply mimicking its predecessor's conventions exactly vs. the belief that it did, and therefore reduced itself to formula) did for Unbreakable's; to quote Kurt Vonnegut, so it goes.

Now comes Signs, which I think is pretty much perfect, for many of the same reasons that Michael's already outlined: Subtle acting, a build-up which seems inevitable in hindsight, creep and shocks which rely squarely on you, the viewer, to connect the dots. Yet this time, the backlash isn't even waiting a few weeks to set in, and instead of focusing on areas which actually bear examining—Shyamalan's grantedly hubristic tendency to cast himself in increasingly more central cameo roles, his occasionally unnecessary obsession with showy tricks of framing, his almost Mamet-ian tics of dialogue-as-duelling-monologues, etc.—it takes the film for the most unprovable of all sins: Involving stuff we, the critics, apparently didn't think it would.

What I find hard to understand—and this is speaking as an extremely secular person raised within the context of an extremely secular culture—is why the not-exactly-O.-Henry-like denoument of Signs is coming in for so little slack, just because it implies the dreaded G-O-D word at work. Especially since the one character really voicing that implication is Graham Hess, a man whose explicit dramatic journey, from frame one, has been from the uncomfortable position of trying to retroactively eradicate the faith that's obviously sustained him his entire life just because a chain of negative coincidence knocked the pins out from under his pleasant, rural, family-centred existence to the realization that the idea of a loving God is a psychological construct he personally NEEDS to organize his life around.

Now, let me be clear: If God Itself had appeared at the eleventh hour, shook Its finger at the menace in question and intoned "Get thee behind me, menace!", I'd be seriously pissed off. But that, not to spoil, isn't what happens. Graham, his brother and the kids have to take direct action themselves to save themselves from their predicament, with nary a shred of outright divine intervention in sight—connect the dots provided, just like Shyamalan's intended audience. And since they've been established over and over and over again as not being frickin' eedjits, they do.

That being said, is it really so unacceptable that a man who's spent his entire life interpreting positive and negative chains of coincidence as a "sign" that God A) exists and B) is essentially on our side might, under great stress, interpret yet another chain of coincidence—one very definitely in his favor, this time—as a "sign" that his personal vendetta with the Almighty was, thankfully, unnecessary? Said "twist" (which isn't much of one, really) is simply the logical extension of everything we've observed thus far about Graham Hess as a person—so it's not a deus ex machina, doesn't come out of left field (ha, ha), and isn't unearned in any way. It's just the basic culmination of every storytelling breadcrumb Shyamalan's laid down thus far.

When all's said and done, Signs is a flick told through the perspective of one particular, explicitly religious man and his family, all of whom seem just as likely to interpret things the way he does. On this level, it works gorgeously—and since that's obviously the level it's designed to work on, asking it to skip the central element of that perspective entirely, just because it annoys the "recovering" religious sophisticates who happen to be watching seems ... non-utilitarian. At the least.

Gemma Files isn't recovering from anything but a lingering summer cold right now, and the fact that she married a devout Catholic has less to do with her argument here than you might think.

Mike

While filming Chimes at Midnight, Orson Welles said: "The drama itself dictates the kind of world in which it is going to happen." Lousy science-fiction, fantasy, and horror (examples? we'd be here all day) does the opposite: the world is created first, and the drama is contorted to suit the world. Harry Potter works because Hogwarts is a brilliant world in which to unfold the drama of an eleven-year-old growing up. An "epic" trilogy like Legend of the Pork Sword sucks, because the world in which it takes place is imagined first as a marvelous land where the Elves of Light can topple Lord Stench with the help of a small, furry dragon-like creature the size of a cat named "Wuffkin." The drama hammered into that world is fake.

"'GIVE BACK MY AMULET!' thundered Lord Stench. Yet the brave little dragon would not yield. Full of the fighting fire of his forebears was Wuffkin." You get the idea.

What does this have to do with writer/director M. Night Shyamalan's new "crop circle" movie, Signs? Everything... everything that Shyamalan gets right, that is. Each aspect of the movie, from its rural Pennsylvania setting, to the weirdness of the crop circles, to the revelation of what is behind the crop circles, serves the central human drama: the rejection of God by former Episcopalian minister, Graham Hess (played by Mel Gibson). The mundane and fantastic elements of the film's world serve that drama. Hence, the world and the drama are both fascinating.

There's much to admire about Signs. Shyamalan (almost) never insults your intelligence. The movie is full of signs other directors would club you over the head with; I shudder to think what '80s-era Spielberg would do with this material. The use of sound and silence is stunning. Shyamalan tackles the fluid meaning of signs in ways few serious "novelists" can these days. The performances are terrific. Joaquin Phoenix is great as Gibson's brother (they look like brothers). Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin as Gibson's kids are splendidly believable (as in, Haley-Joel-Osment believable).

Yet Signs dies by the end. A narrative about a man losing faith in God can't be saved by clunky deus ex machina. (Ta-da...! Heeeeeere's... GOD, Ladies and Gentlemen!) Blatty's Exorcist did it better a long time ago, in which the deus ex machina is a deeply coded and beautiful sign. Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko just hinted of a Philip K. Dick/VALIS-like Gnostic God.

Not relying on blunt deus ex machina is one thing most science-fiction gets right in its post-Triffids/Andromeda Strain/War of the Worlds form. Shyamalan's deus ex machina rots the drama and the filmic world that had, up until then, served the drama incredibly well. Ultimately, the ending is more intrusive and disruptive than the antagonistic agencies behind the crop circles. The ending of this film about challenged faith thwarts our own faith in Signs. Were it not for this sloppy resolution, Signs would be a classic.

Michael Marano would like to thank fellow writer Michael Gibbons for coming up with the idea of Wuffkin in a fit of beautifully venomous pique while he and Marano perused the science fiction and fantasy section of a bookstore together.